h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Having now explained all the pronunciation, we should take a quick look at the alphabet itself.

It is sometimes necessary to know how to spell something, give the number of your car, or for any other reason. A French acquaintance once wanted to spell his name over the phone to someone in English and not knowing the telephone alphabet, he was really stuck, only knowing 1/3 of the letters of his name. And his name was "May".

Right:

The most important rule is not do make diphthongs of the vowels. I shall use the French é to show the "ay" sound which most letters have, to distract from the "aa-ee" which the English-speaker would normally make of this.

A - is pronounced like "are" - but no "r" sound, just aaaa
B - bé
C - TSAY or rather TSé
D - Dé
E - é - (glottal stop!)
F - eff
G - gé - but Germans will take the word "gay" to make puns with this letter
H - Ha!
I - Eeeee
J - Yott
K - Ka - just like "car"
L - ell
M . emm
N - Enn
O - Oar (slight diphthong allowed)
P - pé
Q - koo (lips really pushed forward, please, even if it's early in the morning in your time zone)
R - air
S - ess
T - Té
U - Ooooo (again, don't be shy to push your lips really forward)
V - Fow (to rhyme with now)
W - Vay - pronounce vé
X - ix
Y - oopsilon (after the Greek origin)
Z - Tssett


The letters with umlauts are said as they sound:

Ä - as "Eh?" with the lips quite wide open
Ö - our "ur" or "er" sound. The inside of the mouth is shaped as if you were pronouncing "Y" in the English style.
Ü - like the French "u" - The same sort of shape to the mouth as for Ö but much narrower.

Try spelling your name or the name of your company. If you know the numbers, say your car registration out loud, or just repeat the alphabet, sing it (Mozart wrote a little tune to sing it to).

Sorry I missed out yesterday.

Have fun. See you tomorrow with a bit of grammar - unless you have any questions.

For detailed instructions as to how to write the ÄÖÜ and ß letters if you don't have them on your keyboard, look at

Sorry - missed link. For the special letters, go to : http://www.h2g2.com/F59873?thread=96034&post=803044 (post 20)