How to pronounce Luxembourgish: vowels, diphthongs and consonants with audio

ë, é, ä, the two ch sounds, w that sounds like v and v that sounds like f: the sounds of Luxembourgish, letter by letter, each with a word read by a native speaker and its pronunciation from the official LOD dictionary.

Updated November 2, 2026 · 4 min read

Luxembourgish spelling is close to how it sounds — once you know a dozen rules. This guide goes through the vowels, the diphthongs and the consonants that surprise English, French and German speakers, then word stress. Every example is a headword of the Lëtzebuerger Online Dictionnaire (LOD): press play to hear its native speaker, and read the IPA (the international phonetic alphabet) LOD gives for it. For how the letters are written, see Luxembourgish spelling.

The vowels

The diphthongs

Luxembourgish has more diphthongs (two vowels in one syllable) than German. Each spelling stands for one sound:

The consonants that surprise

ch: two sounds

After e, i, ä, ë, é and consonants, ch is soft [ɕ] — close to *sh* with the tongue raised, like German *ich*. After a, o, u, au it is the rough [χ] of Scottish *loch*. A final g follows the same rule: *bëlleg* ends in [ɕ], *Dag* in [χ].

w is [v], v is [f]

z is [ts], s before a vowel is [z]

r, j and the -er ending

r is made at the back of the throat [ʀ], as in French; at the end of a word, -er becomes a soft [ɐ], almost an *a*. j is English *y*.

Word stress

Native Luxembourgish words are stressed on the first syllable — *Dokter, Mëtteg, Rechnung*. Words from French often keep their stress at the end — *Rendez-vous* [ʀɑ̃ːdeːˈvuː], *Ordonnance* [ɔʀdoˈnɑ̃ːs] — but not always: *merci* is said [ˈmɛʀsiː] and *Supermarché* [ˈsupɐmɑʀʃeː], stress first. French nasal vowels stay nasal.

Sounds in connected speech

In a sentence, words run together: a final n disappears before most consonants (*gudde Moien*, *ech komme kuerz*) — the n-rule — and unstressed pronouns shrink (*hu mer, gi se, bass de*). These are what learners miss most when listening; train them with the listening guide.

How to practise

1. Listen, then repeat — then record yourself. Play a word above, say it, record it, compare. Ten words a day is plenty.
2. Learn words with their sound. Every phrase page and verb table has a recording; start with hello, please and good morning.
3. Shadow whole sentences from the greetings and the present-tense guide: speak along with the speaker, at the same speed.
4. Get feedback from a native ear. A machine can't yet tell you that your *ë* is too open; a person can. On Edluxio you book 1-to-1 online lessons with independent teachers, among them native Luxembourgish speakers — book a trial lesson, refunded in full if the first one isn't right for you.

Keep learning

• At the doctor and the pharmacy
• Shopping and eating out
• 32 greetings and everyday phrases
• Asking questions
• Negation
• The present tense
• The past tense
• Word order
• Phrase pages: thank you · goodbye · excuse me
• All phrase pages
• Luxembourgish spelling: how to read ë, é, ä
• The n-rule
• Sproochentest speaking (A2)
• What A2 and B1 mean
• Personal pronouns
• 100 everyday verbs
• Verb tables to practise: sinn · schwätzen · verstoen · léieren
• How to learn Luxembourgish online