Letter Ä With Two Dots | Rosetta Stone® (2024)

If you’ve ever wondered what those two dots above an “ä” are about, they’re generally called umlauts. Particularly common in German, they’re used to modify the suggested pronunciation of the letter a. And not only do they show up in some instances of the German letter a, but also in Finnish, Swedish, Estonian, Slovak, and a number of other languages. The same dots also appear over other letters in yet more languages, notably Spanish, where the dots (known in Spanish as the “diaresis” mark) only occur above the letter ü.

Particularly if you’re planning a vacation, getting down the letters and general pronunciation of the native language can completely change your days/weeks/months abroad. Not only will it make it easier to get around and to connect with people in everyday situations, but having some fundamentals down will significantly smooth your interactions with people in stores, museums, restaurants, hotels, and beyond.

It helps to get ready to handle situations with confidence, so Rosetta Stone’s Dynamic Immersion® method helps you learn the language—not just the words. What makes this approach effective is that we prepare you to use your new language in your everyday life. So it’s not just about the features on the app, but what you’re able to do because of them.

Learning a language can be an experience that transforms your life. Not only does it open you to a world full of both professional and personal possibilities, but it also expands your thinking and can prime your confidence. As technology, like the internet, shrinks our world and we become members of a global community, the ability to learn a language becomes an essential part of how we interact and succeed.

Perhaps you’ve hesitated to learn a new language because you’re worried about the time commitment. Or maybe you’ve heard it’s more difficult to learn a language as an adult. Set these common misconceptions about learning languages aside, because research suggests that your ability to learn a language is mostly a matter of practise, building confidence through speaking, and contextualising your learning.

After you decide on which language to learn and begin to pick up its basics, developing accurate pronunciation depends on getting immediate feedback on your pronunciation efforts. Feedback will help you to make needed corrections to your pronunciation. Then you can practise until your mouth is able to form the sounds that make up the language.

Rosetta Stone’s TruAccent™ speech engine helps you get the pronunciation down. By instantly comparing your voice to native and non-native speakers, you get real-time feedback for the most accurate pronunciation. It’s also adjustable, which allows you to fine-tune your accent. TruAccent is among the most powerful tools for helping you learn and speak virtually any language.

After beginners have acquired basic words, short phrases, and their proper pronunciation, it will be a natural transition to learn the longer phrases that make up so much of everyday conversation. Rosetta Stone’s brief, 10-minute lessons are built in exactly this way, teaching the basics first, then moving onto longer phrases. This approach helps you acquire the skills to understand and be understood with confidence.