Right now there are three threads under “Germany” referring to “Dusseldorf”. That spelling is incorrect. Düsseldorf is NOT spelled with a ‘u’. ‘u’ is NOT ‘ü’. Those two dots (umlaut) over the u are not ornaments. ‘ü’ is a different letter than ‘u’. It’s pronounced differently from ‘u’. In German, ‘u’ is pronounced, similarly to English, with the lips rounded and the tongue back in the mouth. ‘ü’ is pronounced with the lips rounded and the tongue forward. It sounds more like an ‘i’ (English ‘i’) than a ‘u’.

Don’t ignore the umlaut. If you cannot create the ‘ü’ on your keyboard (<alt> 0252), use ‘ue’. ‘ue’ has historical validity. ‘ü’ was originally u^e in the Sütterlin handwriting.

So it’s Düsseldorf or Duesseldorf, not Dusseldorf, Würzburg or Wuerzburg, not Wurzburg, Füssen or Fuessen, not Fussen, Köln or Koeln, not Koln, etc.

I am a major nitpicker, but I do not pick this particular nit. Frankly, I prefer to see Dusseldorf or Zurich rather than Duesseldorf or Zuerich. Naturally, for those who have mastery of the umlaut, it is better to üse it.

The "ü" or "ue" vs "u" can matter when checking train schedules or researching Germany language websites (searching for hotels etc.).

Regards, Gary

I wouldn't pick that nit either since airlines like Delta that fly there use the spelling of Dusseldorf which is probably where most people are getting the spelling.

kerouac, it's not a matter of mastering the umlauts, it's noting how the word is actually spelled. Since correct spelling doesn't matter, how about we start using Roam (cap. of Italie), Spane, Pairus, etc.

As for checking train schedules, a few years ago, typing 'Fussen' on the Bahn website would get you a bus stop on Fussen Strasse somewhere, not the town in southern Bavaria. Now they have added an "ignorance algorithm" and offer a selection of stops, including Füssen Bahnhof, assuming you might have left off the umlaut.

At the same time, www.füssen.de as a URL would give you an error message. Now füssen.de and fuessen.de both work, but fussen.de only works if you have previously been to füssen.de. The URL koeln.de gets you a lecture, in German, about using Ö.

And isn't the capital of Kentuckie Frankfurt?

I am very familiar with the ulmauts but I personally don't want to take the time to copy and paste an umlauted "u" since my American laptop does not have the umlauted letters on the keyboard. If I was still in my German classes in college I would have made the effort, but this is a travel forum and I think everyone knows which Dusseldorf we are referring to despite the lack of the umlaut.

Tracy

I have no problem making the correct diacritical marks on my American keyboard - it's easy - but I don't expect most people to do it. And I really don't like the alternative of adding the e, as in Duesseldorf (I know it's correct, but to my eye it looks weird). And I do know that the u is a completely different letter from the ü, with a different pronunciation. But frankly, I'm more inclined to pick nits about things like Sienna or Orveito or Dordonge or Normany or the 26 variations on itinerary.

I do hear you about not being able to research accurately without the right spelling, but I guess a lot of people manage to do that.

Actually, if we are writing in English, the correct spelling is indeed Dusseldorf, Zurich, Saarbrucken, etc. If writing in German, they would be completely incorrect.

Generally, I am in favor of using the traditional adapted spellings devised for our normal language, such as Rome instead of Roma or Brussels instead of Brussel or Bruxelles (Am I correct in believing that the German spelling is Brüssel?). If you start imposing the way names are spelled in the country of origin, we are already in big trouble for Moscow, Tokyo or Beijing.

Cologne, Köln, Munich, München, Florence, Firenze, Turin, Torino, everybody knows what is meant. I find references to 'Birmingham, England' and 'London, England' very amusing, but I know that Americans are used to that terminology and I forgive them.

I would be more concerned with idlers who can't be bothered to use capital letters at all or who ask questions that two minutes of research can answer. That says more about them than not knowing where to find an umlaut on an English or American keyboard.

So try booking a train ticket to "Fussen" on the DB website. You will end up in a village named Fussenberg somewhere behind Regensburg.

"Fuessen" is a perfectly correct alternative spelling if one cannot type the Umlaut. The German language offers this easy solution to the problem. Simply omitting it, however, is plain wrong and can be misleading.

>>Larryincolorado on Nov 8, 09 at 12:50pm
kerouac, it's not a matter of mastering the umlauts, it's noting how the word is actually spelled. Since correct spelling doesn't matter, how about we start using Roam (cap. of Italie), Spane, Pairus, etc.It's not that the spelling in incorrect.<<<

It's not that the spelling is incorrect. It's the English spelling and you want everyone to use the German version even if they aren't German. You need to take a look at how different languages spell cities. Paris/Paree/Parigi, etc.

>>>In German<<<

Big Gasp! You used German. Shouldn't it have been Deutsch? How do you expect anyone to know what you are talking about using the wrong spelling for the language?

Who uses the spelling Paree?

Dusseldorf translated to English means "stupids village"

Düsseldorf translated to English means "village at the (river) Düssel"

Not the slightest difference,

Just go on insulting those inhabitants and call their town "stupids village". It's an awful place imho anyway ;-)

http://www.ruhrgebietssprache.de/lexikon/dussel.html
This definition for Larry, maybe a new word?

I too want to know who uses Paree.

"Düsseldorf is NOT spelled with a ‘u’"

Crap

Complete uneducated crap on stilts with a bonnet on top.

The ONLY correct spelling in English of Dusseldorf is...
...Dusseldorf.

Illiterate Americans might wish it were different. And if they persuade enough equally illiterate fellow citizens to follow their idiocy, Dusseldorf might be called something else in the American dialect of English.

But that doesn't make such absurdities correct. Any more than saying it's in Nordrhein-Westfalen, than saying North Rhine-Westfalia is in Deutschland, or saying that Germany's in Europa.

When we want Germans' advice on how our language should be spoken, we'll ask for it. We haven't yet, and aren't going to. We - not they and certainly not uneducated Americans - decide the English word for German citiesis.

How about we all relax and take a deep breath. So people spell it wrong, or they don't depending on which side you subscribe to. It isn't the end of the world. The point of this forum is to give travel advice, not cut people down because they made a typo or forgot an umlaut. Let's stop trashing people and get back to the actual point of this site.

Yup, those "stupid" Düsseldorferians don't care how you spell their town . That is, only if you are not actually in Düsseldorf talkig to one of them.