Modern German Grammar: A Practical Guide, Second Edition

But st, ck, sch and ch are not split in simple words:

Fen-ster

window

drü-cken

to press

wa-schen

to wash

Bü-cher

books

Prefixes and other meaningful parts of a word are preserved intact (see 57 ):

Aus-tausch

exchange

Diens-tag

Tuesday

ß can be split either as -ß or as s-s:

So-ße, Sos-se

sauce

Where a sequence of three identical consonants occurs as a result of word formation

(see 52.1), the three consonants are split to observe the spelling of the component

words. For example, still ‘quiet’ + legen ‘to lay’ = stilllegen (the separable verb

still*legen) ‘to close down (a factory)’. When split at the end of a line, this is written

still-legen.

59.3 Spelling of long and short vowels

 See^1 (p. 3).

(a) A double consonant (see 3 ) following a vowel indicates that the vowel is

pronounced short. An h following the vowel indicates that it is pronounced long.

stellen [shtelen]

to place

stehlen [shte:len]

to steal

However, this is not an absolute guide to pronunciation. Not all long vowels are

indicated by the presence of an h in the spelling:

Kamel [kame:l]

camel

ewig [e:vig]

eternal

 See also 1–4 (pp. 3–6).

(b)ss or ß?

The spelling depends on whether the preceding vowel is pronounced long or short (see

1.4). ss and ß are always pronounced voiceless (see 3.1).

59

STYLE AND ORTHOGRAPHY