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German firms ditch umlauts for global trade

German companies may punch above their weight in the world economy, but their names are often impossible to export globally - and they are ditching their umlauts to fit in.

Published: 29 August 2013 09:53 CEST

German firms ditch umlauts for global trade

Photo: DPA

The umlaut – Ä, Ö and Ü – which has the aural effect of adding an E after a letter, is proving problematic for German exporters, particularly in Asia.

It is disappearing from the names of the country’s export-dependent firms who fear that it is difficult for consumers to pronounce and is tricky for people to use in online searches.

The umlaut is used in the spelling of top German export brands such as Kärcher, Würth, Jägermeister and Löwenbräu.

But globalisation has already led some to drop their umlauts to make their names easier for those who don’t speak German to swallow. Re-insurance firm Münchener Rück calls itself Munich Re abroad, while Dürr, a world leader in car assembly plants, has changed its spelling to Durr.

Dürr spokesman Mathias Christen said the Ü had initially given the company a strong identity. But he said the umlaut could fall foul to the internet age with different spellings being used online. The website is durr.com rather than duerr.com.

Removing the umlaut also helps foreigners pronounce the name, according to Dürr’s head of human resources in Brazil, Alex Cruz.

“We know that abroad the umlaut is problematic,” said Sybille Kircher from marketing agency Nomen International in Düsseldorf. “Names need to be found quickly on the internet and need to be pronounced easily over the telephone.”

Jägermeister has had a similar debate in China over whether to drop the umlaut from its name. They decided to change the name to Ye Ge meaning “Wild Boy”.

Spokeswoman Astrid van Delden said: “The umlaut and its pronunciation is definitely an issue abroad. Most consumers don’t use the full name of the product.”

DPA/The Local/tsb

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An old WW2 photo taken in the French port town of Le Havre.

An old WW2 photo taken in the French port town of Le Havre. It can be difficult to know what prepositions to use for places like this - so we have explained it for you. (Photo by AFP)

If you’re listening to French chat about any of those topics, at some point you’re likely to hear the names of Mans, Havre and Touquet bandied about.

And this is because French towns that have a ‘Le’ ‘La’ or ‘Les’ in the title lose them when you begin constructing sentences.

As a general rule, French town, commune and city names do not carry a gender.

So if you wanted to describe Paris as beautiful, you could write: Paris est belle or Paris est beau. It doesn’t matter what adjectival agreement you use.

For most towns and cities, you would use à to evoke movement to the place or explain that you are already there, and de to explain that you come from/are coming from that location:

Je vais à Marseille – I am going to Marseille

Je suis à Marseille – I am in Marseille

Je viens de Marseille – I come from Marseille

But a select few settlements in France do carry a ‘Le’, a ‘La’ or a ‘Les’ as part of their name.

In this case the preposition disappears when you begin formulating most sentences, and you structure the sentence as you would any other phrase with a ‘le’, ‘la’ or ‘les’ in it.

Masculine

Le is the most common preposition for two names (probably something to do with the patriarchy) with Le Havre, La Mans, Le Touquet and the town of Le Tampon on the French overseas territory of La Réunion (more on that later)

A good example of this is Le Havre, a city in northern France where former Prime Minister, Edouard Philippe, who is tipped to one day run for the French presidency, serves as mayor.

Edouard Philippe’s twitter profile describes him as the ‘Maire du Havre’, using a masculine preposition

Here we can see that his location is Le Havre, and his Twitter handle is Philippe_LH (for Le Havre) but when he comes to describe his job the Le disappears.

Because Le Havre is masculine, he describes himself as the Maire du Havre rather than the Maire de Havre (Anne Hidalgo, for example would describe herself as the Maire de Paris).

For place names with ‘Le’ in front of them, you should use prepositions like this:

Ja vais au Touquet – I am going to Le Touquet

Je suis au Touquet – I am in Le Touquet

Je viens du Touquet – I am from Le Touquet

Je parle du Touquet – I am talking about Le Touquet

Le Traité du Touquet – the Le Touquet Treaty

Feminine

Some towns carry ‘La’ as part of their name. La Rochelle, the scenic town on the west coast of France known for its great seafood and rugby team, is one such example.

In French ‘à la‘ or ‘de la‘ is allowed, while ‘à le‘ becomes au and ‘de le’ becomes du. So for ‘feminine’ towns such as this, you should use the following prepositions:

Je vais à La Rochelle – I am going to La Rochelle

Je viens de La Rochelle – I am coming from La Rochelle

Plural

And some places have ‘Les’ in front of their name, like Les Lilas, a commune in the suburbs of Paris. The name of this commune literally translates as ‘The Lilacs’ and was made famous by Serge Gainsbourg’s song Le Poinçonneur des Lilas, about a ticket puncher at the Metro station there.

When talking about a place with ‘Les’ as part of the name, you must use a plural preposition like so:

Je suis le poinçonneur des Lilas – I am the ticket puncher of Lilas

Je vais aux Lilas – I am going to Les Lilas

Il est né aux Lilas – He was born in Les Lilas

Islands

Islands follow more complicated rules.

If you are talking about going to one island in particular, you would use à or en. This has nothing to do with gender and is entirely randomised. For example:

Je vais à La Réunion – I am going to La Réunion

Je vais en Corse – I am going to Corsica

Generally speaking, when talking about one of the en islands, you would use the following structure to suggest movement from the place:

Je viens de Corse – I am coming from Corsica

For the à Islands, you would say:

Je viens de La Réunion – I am coming from La Réunion

When talking about territories composed of multiple islands, you should use aux.

Je vais aux Maldives – I am going to the Maldives.

No preposition needed

There are some phrases in French which don’t require any a preposition at all. This doesn’t change when dealing with ‘Le’ places, such as Le Mans – which is famous for its car-racing track and Motorcycle Grand Prix. Phrases that don’t need a preposition include:

Je visite Le Mans – I am visiting Le Mans

J’aime Le Mans – I like Le Mans

But for a preposition phrase, the town becomes simply Mans, as in Je vais au Mans.

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