ä

Meanings

1. 1nouncountable

   The letter a written with two dots above it, used in languages such as German, Finnish, and Swedish.

   Grammar: Names a written character; the plural is rare and often written with an apostrophe in English.

   Patterns

   • the letter ä
   • write ä
   • German ä

   In German dictionaries, ä is treated as a special form of a.

   Do not confuse ä with a plain a when copying a name.

   The word includes an ä after the first letter.

2. 2nouncountable

   The vowel sound represented by ä, which varies by language and dialect.

   Grammar: Refers to the sound value, not just the printed mark; pronunciation differs between German, Finnish, and Swedish.

   Patterns

   • pronounce ä
   • the ä sound
   • an ä vowel

   German Mädchen contains the letter ä in its spelling.

   In Swedish, ä represents a front vowel sound different from Swedish a.

   Learners should copy ä exactly because it may change pronunciation.

Word forms

Common combinations

umlaut over a

The umlaut over a turns it into ä.

German ä

German learners practice the vowel in Männer and ähnlich.

Swedish ä

Swedish uses ä in common words such as väg and äta.

Finnish ä

Finnish ä is a separate letter from an in the alphabet.

type ä

Hold the correct key to type ä on an international keyboard.

Word family

umlaut noun

The two-dot mark or the sound change it can signal in some languages.

diaeresis noun

A related two-dot mark used in some writing systems; usage overlaps with but is not identical to umlaut.

A noun

The unmarked base letter, without the two dots.

Commonly confused: ä or umlaut? ä or a?

Practice

Make it your own

Write a sentence using “ä”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.

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