For German speakers?

Question

What are the two dots called when they appear over a letter?
Also, how does it effect the sound of the letter or word?

Answer 1

Well, if you put dots on a vowel, then the vowel sound, and the vowel are called an umlaut, not the dots themselves. They don't really have a name. You may call them "Umlautpunkte", but depending on the font (or the penmanship of the writer), they can also be two small vertical slashes or - rarely - one horizontal slash, rather than dots (dot is "Punkt").

"ä" (short) is a lot like short German "e" (as "e" in English "ferry")
"ä" (long) is close to English "ai" in "air"
"ö" (short) is close to English "u" in "burn" or "fur"
"ö" (long) does not exist in the English language
"ü" (long or short) does not exist in the English language, but both are halfway between German "i" ("ee" in "seen" or "i" in "sin", resp.) and "u" ("oo" in "moose" or "u" in "put", resp.).

Since native English speakers do not know "ü" or long "ö", they often try to navigate around this by making sounds like "oy" for "ö", and "oo", "yoo" or "ooy" for "ü", but these are never heard in any actual German dialect.

Answer 2

You may have seen those peske little dots that sometimes appear over vowles in German words. They are called Umlaute (umlauts).

They slightly alter the sound of a vowel, as outlined:

German letter As in English German Word

ä (long a) hair nächste
ä (short a) let Bäcker
ö (er) learn hören (pronounced like hearen)
ü lure Tür (pronounced like tour)

..

Answer 3

Umlaut. When it appears over an A, it gives the sound of the A of the word sad. Over an O, it gives the sound similar of the I of the word Birth. Over an U it gives the sound of U in the word Fuel.

Answer 4

Umlaut
"German uses the umlaut to alter the sounds of the vowels a, o and u: ä, ö and ü are distinctly different sounds than their un-umlauted relatives. One occasionally sees them printed in alternative spelling as ae, oe and ue, especially when someone has had trouble figuring out how to print an umlaut. "

Go to the link for a pronunciation guide and to listen to the difference in sounds:
http://www.pronunciationguide.org/German.html

Answer 5

the two dots are called an umlaut and they only appear over vowels. hard to write the pronunciation but i'll try:

a umlaut should be pronounced as an 'e' in english (as in bEd, shEd)
o umlaut is like saying 'er' in english (rhymes with fur)
u umlaut is said as 'oo' (as in mOOse)

i hope that helps :-)... been learing german for 5 years, it will come naturally after a while

Answer 6

may I add just as additional information:
If you cannot type the ä or ö because american keybords don't have that
it is also understandable for Germans if you write instead of "spröde" "sproede" or "müde" "muede" it is pronounced just as if you would use the "umlaut" itself

Answer 7

Umlaut.
ö is pronounced uh (with a long vowel sound)
ä is pronounced ay
ü is pronounced pursing the lips and emitting a sound somewhere between an “ee” and an “oo”

Answer 8

Geheimnisse sollen auch geheim sein. or Geheimnisse sollen gewahrt bleiben (idiom) or Geheimnisse sollen solche bleiben (cool too) or Geheimnisse sollen gehalten werden (yet does not sound "around" to me)