{"id":1165,"date":"2010-10-12T10:27:19","date_gmt":"2010-10-12T10:27:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/?p=1165"},"modified":"2010-10-12T01:31:10","modified_gmt":"2010-10-12T01:31:10","slug":"exploring-the-german-letter-s","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/exploring-the-german-letter-s\/","title":{"rendered":"Exploring the German letter \u00df"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The German language has a letter that does not appear in its alphabet: the letter \u00df. Because of its shape the letter \u00df can be easily mistaken for a B. The \u00df, pronounced <em>Eszett<\/em>, is a ligature of the initial- and inner-s and the final-s of the German type font, which was used from the 16<sup>th<\/sup> century until about 1940.<\/p>\n<p>Unfortunately, the untruth exists that the letter \u00df does fully correspond to a double-s. It is true that we can spell a word alternatively with a double-s instead of an \u00df whenever and wherever it is suitable, e.g. in crossword puzzles or when you do not have an \u00df-key on your keyboard. Nevertheless, you should avoid overusing it because there is a clear rule when a word has to be spelled with an \u00df and when with a double-s.<\/p>\n<p>The letter \u00df has a particular function in the German language. Firstly, it represents a sharp s-sound \u2013 just like a double-s. And secondly, it indicates that we have to utter a <strong>long<\/strong> vowel before the \u00df, whereas we utter a <strong>short<\/strong> vowel before a double-s. Thus, the spelling of a word can affect both the pronunciation and even the meaning of a word.<\/p>\n<p>Here you can find a video in which I give some example words and their correct pronunciation and spelling. I hope you will find it helpful.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"The German letter \u00df\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/J_cZElmvcPE?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The German language has a letter that does not appear in its alphabet: the letter \u00df. Because of its shape the letter \u00df can be easily mistaken for a B. The \u00df, pronounced Eszett, is a ligature of the initial- and inner-s and the final-s of the German type font, which was used from the&hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"post-item__readmore\"><a class=\"btn btn--md\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/exploring-the-german-letter-s\/\">Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":54,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[11827,551768,146,11828,1401],"class_list":["post-1165","post","type-post","status-publish","hentry","category-language","tag-letter","tag-pronunciation","tag-spelling","tag-s","tag-words"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1165","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/54"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1165"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1165\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1172,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1165\/revisions\/1172"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1165"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1165"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1165"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}