Even though this is supposed to be an audiobased course, to get a basic understanding of German writing and the special German letters an audio format is not enough.
Thus, I will publish a few short videos to help you understand German writing.
Welcome. Here you will learn about special German letters as well as a few special combinations of vowels. German mostly uses the common Latin letters, which you already know, but the vowels are pronounced slightly different. While the normal vowel-sounds are produced in the chest, the so called “Umlaute” are produced in the back of the throat.
The three “Umlaute” are: “Ä”, “Ö“, and ”Ü”.
If you are learning German, you will most likely not have a German keyboard, but do not worry because there is a second way to write those letters.
Instead of adding two dots on top, you can just add an “e” after the letter.
Ä -> Ae
Ö -> Oe
Ü -> Ue
Now let us look at how to pronounce the first Umlaut:
“Ä” is pronounced as the “a” in “apple”. The normal “a” in German comes more from the throat like the “a” in “ardent”.
All the Umlaute are produced in the back of the throat, while the normal vowels are produced in the chest.
Let us practice distinguishing these two. I will play a German word, then you shall guess if it is with “ä” or with “a”. After that I will play the word one more time and show you how it is written.
Kätzchen.
Hase.
Apfel.
Kater.
Äpfel.
Farbe.
Hände.
Now I will show you some words and I want you to read them out loud. Focus on the right pronunciation of “ä” and “a”, the rest of the word is not as important.
Max
Äste
Rät
An
Hände
Alex
Now let us look at the second Umlaut:
The normal vowels “A”, “O” and “U” come more from your chest. The Umlaute are more from the back of your throat. O is like the “o” in “close”. While “ö” is pronounced like the “u” in “burn”.
Exactly as before, tell me if it is “ö” or if it is “o”.
Rösten
Ort
König
Krone
Oder
Öffnen
Hörner
Now read the following, focus on the pronounciation of “ö” or “o”.
Post
König
Ort
Körper
Können
Computer
Great. One more to go.
“Ü” is pronounced like the “y” in “analysis”, while “u” is pronounced like the word “you” without the “y”.
As with the others, we will practice distinguishing the two.
Übel
Unten
Unser
Über
Rübe
Und
Türe
Now try to pronounce the following.
Und
Türe
Rund
Rübe
Müll
Hanse Study 
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