German (Germany) style guide

Use this page for German written for readers in Germany. Austrian and Swiss terminology, spelling and number formats need their own locale decisions. Follow the shared voice, interface actions and localization review guidance; the rules here cover German choices that affect the text.

Address and register

Use Sie in product help and support. Keep Sie, Ihnen and the corresponding possessive Ihr capitalized. A campaign or community surface may use du when its brief calls for that relationship; keep the choice consistent through headings, instructions and messages.

Give instructions with the polite imperative: Öffnen Sie die Datei. Use an infinitive or noun phrase for a compact label: Datei öffnen, Exportoptionen. Neither needs the subject of an English sentence. Explanatory prose still needs the information that identifies who acts and what happens.

Use wir when the company or support team really acts. An automatic export is an application action, not a promise from an unnamed team. German passive constructions can describe that action naturally: Die Datei wird exportiert. Name the actor when it matters.

Keep questions natural: Möchten Sie die Änderungen speichern? The subjunctive is appropriate for a polite question, a hypothetical condition or reported speech. Replacing it mechanically with the indicative can turn a possibility into a fact.

People and grammatical gender

Prefer direct address when it preserves the role: Sie können den Export abbrechen. If only an administrator can act, retain that restriction instead of addressing every reader as though they have permission.

Use a natural neutral term when it refers to the same people: Team, Lehrkraft, Teilnehmende. A collective such as Kundschaft does not replace one customer, and Studierende does not cover every learner. Plural participles can avoid specifying gender; their singular articles and endings may still mark it.

For a named person, use the name, pronouns and form of address that person uses. Do not infer personal gender from a noun's grammatical gender. Keep agreement within the chosen construction: die Person, ihr Profil. Rephrase a generic reference when agreement otherwise produces cumbersome alternatives.

An inclusive edit must preserve identity, number and responsibility. It must not turn one account owner into a team, or replace a specific family relationship with an unrelated one. See accessible content for the shared inclusion principles.

Terminology and word choice

Use the approved German term for the concept and the exact label shown in the interface. Familiarity does not make related terms interchangeable: an application, a process and a program are not always the same object. Keep a technical term when the distinction matters to the reader.

Prefer a direct verb when it carries the same meaning: helfen can replace Unterstützung bieten. Do not apply a word-substitution list without checking the sentence. erfordern and benötigen, for example, can assign the requirement to different subjects. telefonieren is a normal German verb; it does not need a longer noun construction.

Distinguish a note addressed to the reader (Hinweis) from a note the reader creates (Notiz). Choose Informationen for substantive explanatory content; Info may fit a compact, informal label. Match existing product terminology rather than shortening every occurrence.

Check false friends against the quantity or concept. English billion means Milliarde, not Billion. A translation of phone must not silently narrow the device to a smartphone. Keep qualifications, conditions and factual details when splitting or combining sentences.

Nouns, compounds and borrowed words

Capitalize German nouns and nominalized verbs, including in headings: Exportieren einer Datei. Do not copy English title capitalization onto adjectives and other words.

Keep umlauts and ß in ordinary German spelling. In capitals, Straße can become STRAẞE or STRASSE. Do not replace every SS with ẞ: many words contain an original ss. Preserve the spelling of a personal name or identifier. Use accepted current spelling consistently; a list of discontinued variants is not a substitute for checking the actual word.

Write ordinary German compounds together: Dateiname, Schriftfamilie, Exportoptionen. Use a hyphen where the construction requires it or where it makes a difficult compound legible: 3D-Darstellung, OpenType-Funktion. Avoid a rigid rule based on the number of component words. A phrase can be clearer than a long compound: Einstellungen für den Export.

When a multiword expression becomes part of a compound, connect its components appropriately: Social-Media-Konto. Proper names do not create a blanket grammatical exemption from compound hyphenation. To preserve a protected product spelling, rephrase the relationship: Einstellungen von Vexy Lines. Do not alter an identifier or an exact interface label to make it look like an ordinary German compound.

Borrowed nouns take the gender and inflection established for the German term: der Server, des Servers, auf den Servern. German case endings depend on the noun: des Ordners, des Verzeichnisses. Do not apply a universal -s ending or impose a supplier’s plural Agents on every German reference to an agent. Check the actual word rather than adding an English plural ending to everything. A terminology entry should record gender and any irregular plural needed by translators.

Borrowed verbs take German conjugation: chatten, sie chattet, gechattet. Some participles allow both a German and an English-style ending, such as gelikt and geliked; inflected forms need the German ending, as in der gelikte Beitrag. Use one accepted spelling consistently. Prefer a familiar German verb when the borrowing adds no useful distinction. For established noun forms such as Plug-in and Check-in, keep the lowercase particle; an actual product label or identifier retains its own case.

Articles, case and sentence construction

Use the article required by the German noun: Öffnen Sie den Ordner. An English label without an article is not a model for every German sentence. Preserve a product name's spelling by placing the inflection in the surrounding phrase where necessary.

Choose a preposition for the intended relationship. Useful patterns include mit etwas verbinden, in einen Ordner importieren, auf eine Schaltfläche klicken, im Menü and Informationen zu einer Funktion. Do not translate an English preposition independently of its verb and object.

A sentence can begin with a prepositional phrase: Im Menü Datei finden Sie die Exportbefehle. Keep German verb placement and case intact when changing the order. Putting the condition first can help: Wenn die Datei schreibgeschützt ist, speichern Sie eine Kopie.

Use possessives when ownership distinguishes the object. Where ownership is obvious, die Datei may be clearer than a repeated Ihre Datei. Do not remove a possessive that separates the reader's file from somebody else's.

Commas and punctuation

Separate subordinate clauses with commas. This includes sentence-like infinitive groups: Wählen Sie einen Ordner, um die Dateien dort zu speichern. An infinitive that belongs to a compound predicate has no separating comma: Die Datei scheint beschädigt zu sein. A bare infinitive may allow either analysis; choose the punctuation that makes the structure clear.

A comma before und or oder is not automatically required between independent clauses. Use it where it helps the reader see their boundaries. Commas required by an embedded clause or insertion still apply; do not remove them merely because a conjunction follows.

Use German quotation marks in running prose: „…“, with ‚…‘ for an inner quotation. Preserve straight quotes in literal code and command syntax. In documentation, format interface labels according to the mechanics rules instead of surrounding every control name with quotation marks.

Use – (U+2013) for a range or a spaced parenthetical dash when that construction is appropriate. Use − (U+2212) for a mathematical minus sign: −2,5. Preserve the ASCII hyphen-minus in literal input when the application requires it. These characters are not interchangeable.

An ellipsis can mark omitted text; it is not inherently informal. Preserve an ellipsis that belongs to an exact interface label. Do not add one to a status merely to suggest progress. Headings and short labels normally have no final period; complete message sentences do.

Abbreviations, numbers and units

Use established abbreviations sparingly. Keep their normal spaces and periods: z. B., d. h., u. a., usw. A period at the end of an abbreviation also serves as the sentence's final period. Where the output supports it, a nonbreaking space can keep a multi-part abbreviation together. Do not remove the space as a substitute for controlling line wrapping.

Preserve approved acronym spelling and case, including mixed-case forms. Expand an unfamiliar acronym once when the explanation helps this audience. Avoid redundant expansions such as PIN-Nummer when PIN is clear. Do not invent a German initialism merely to match a translated phrase.

For German prose in this locale, use the decimal comma: 12,5 mm. Keep a space between a value and its unit; use a nonbreaking space where suitable. Let the application format dynamic values. Preserve a version such as 1.2.0, an IP address or a decimal point required by an input field exactly; they are not prose numbers.

A euro amount can be 12,50 €. An English 1,000,000,000 is eine Milliarde; check the integer before translating a scale word. The examples here use actual nonbreaking spaces between values and units or currency symbols.

Keep the unit's approved symbol and case. A byte is not a bit, and a typographic point is not an inch. Do not change a unit without converting and verifying the value. Follow names and formats for identifiers and locale-sensitive values.

Interface actions

Choose the German verb for the actual operation. The following are wording examples, not a list of product commands.

Operation	German wording
Choose an existing option	eine Option auswählen
Enable or disable a checkbox	ein Kontrollkästchen aktivieren / deaktivieren
Select text or objects for an operation	Text oder Objekte markieren
Click a particular control	auf die Schaltfläche klicken
Enter text or a value	Text oder einen Wert eingeben
Press a key	eine Taste drücken
Drag an object	ein Objekt ziehen

An input-independent instruction may name the resulting action. A lesson about clicking or dragging must keep the gesture. Replacing klicken with auswählen everywhere can change the operation.

Name a task with an infinitive phrase when useful: Datei exportieren. For a guided workflow, a phrase such as Assistent zum Exportieren von Dateien can be clearer than a long compound. Match the actual title when referring to an existing dialog.

Messages and variable text

Distinguish an instruction, an operation in progress and its result:

Meaning	German example
Command	Datei exportieren
Progress	Die Datei wird exportiert.
Completed result	Die Datei wurde exportiert.
Failed attempt	Die Datei konnte nicht exportiert werden.
Requirement	Sie müssen einen Zielordner angeben.
Recommendation	Sie sollten eine Kopie speichern.
Possibility	Nicht gespeicherte Änderungen können verloren gehen.

Do not turn konnte nicht into kann nicht automatically: one reports a failed attempt, while the other can describe a present limitation. Keep mindestens eine distinct from mehr als eine. Retain a warning's possibility instead of claiming that loss is certain.

Name a cause only when it is known. An error code identifies a failure; the code itself is not its cause. Keep the failed operation and the next available action in the message, without adding an unsupported promise that retrying will succeed. Beschädigt does not automatically preserve the meaning of zerstört. Keep the degree of damage and uncertainty instead of standardizing every failure to one noun.

Variable nouns can change articles and adjective endings. If a placeholder is always a filename, a stable construction can be Die Datei {name} konnte nicht geöffnet werden. If it may name several object types, provide complete messages or a grammatical rewrite. Do not assume that one article works for every substituted word. Preserve the parser's token names and format syntax as described in messages and variables.

Keyboard wording and speech

Use the key label or platform name that the reader can identify. Strg, Umschalt, Entf and Leertaste are useful German terms, but an old key-name table cannot override the actual device or application. Do not replace Command with Ctrl or claim a shortcut works on every layout. For an arrow key, Pfeiltaste nach links is a clear descriptive name. Match the documented combination and its order.

For narration, use the established German pronunciation of familiar technical words and a consistent, recognizable reading of product names. There is no universal requirement to impose a British accent or suppress every regional feature. Spell an unfamiliar initialism when that helps recognition.

Read a version as a version: 8.0 can be spoken as acht Punkt null. If the listener must reproduce an address or identifier, include every necessary character in order; do not omit dots because the audience is technical. Check timing and captions with the audiovisual guidance.