Just like in English, there are 26 letters in the German alphabet. Also like in English, German has many more sounds than just 26, as letters sound different depending on how they are combined or how they are found in words.
German also has additional letters that are not considered part of the 26. Three of the German vowels (a, o, u) can be written with an umlaut (ä, ö, ü) to represent different sounds, and the letter ß can be written in place of a double “s,” like in the word weiß (meaning “white”).
