{"id":93312,"date":"2023-07-31T08:28:19","date_gmt":"2023-07-31T12:28:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.fluentu.com\/blog\/learn\/german-animal-sounds\/"},"modified":"2025-06-09T10:06:49","modified_gmt":"2025-06-09T14:06:49","slug":"german-animal-sounds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fluentu.com\/blog\/german\/german-animal-sounds\/","title":{"rendered":"31 Animal Sounds in German"},"content":{"rendered":"

What does a German cow say, and why should you want to know? Well, for one thing, you’ll find that many German books<\/a>, movies<\/a> and TV shows<\/a> use animal sounds. And if you’re learning German as a family<\/a>, animal noises are a fun and easy way to entertain children.<\/p>\n

I’ve organized these German animal sounds by the type of animal. So if you want to know the different sounds made by birds, we’ve covered all of them, as well as the verb forms and the name of each animal in German.<\/p>\n

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1. Cow: muh<\/em>\u00a0<\/em>(moo)<\/h2>\n

Classic cow mooing sounds exactly the same when spoken, but the spelling changes a bit. In German you would spell it as muh<\/em><\/strong>, and in English you spell it as “moo.”<\/p>\n

It’s also worth mentioning that a German cow is called eine Kuh<\/em><\/strong>, and a group of cows is called eine Herde<\/em><\/strong>. If you need to use the moo sound in a sentence, as a verb, the word muhen<\/em><\/strong> is what you’re looking for.<\/p>\n

2. Cow: bl\u00f6ken<\/em>\u00a0<\/em>(bleating)<\/h2>\n

Bleating isn’t exactly a cow sound that people are used to practicing themselves, but it’s an essential part of a cow’s vocabulary. The word\u00a0bl\u00f6ken<\/em><\/strong> represents a low bleating tone.<\/p>\n

3. Dog: wau wau<\/em>\u00a0<\/em>(bow-wow)<\/h2>\n

In order to give off the bow-wow sound of a dog, simply remove the English b’s and replace them with w’s. That turns it into wau wau<\/em><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

The word dog is also helpful to know when matching up animal sounds, so you can say dog with the German word der\u00a0<\/em>Hund<\/em><\/strong>. As a bonus tip, a pack of dogs is called a\u00a0Hundemeute<\/em><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

4. Dog: wuf wuf<\/em>\u00a0<\/em>(woof woof)<\/h2>\n

A woof has a similar sound in German and English, but the spelling changes to wuf wuf<\/em><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

5. Dog: knurren<\/em>\u00a0<\/em>(growl)<\/h2>\n

A growl noise isn’t reserved just for a dog, so you can use it for anything from wolves to bears and more.<\/p>\n

Knurren<\/em><\/strong> is the proper sound to represent that fierce growl. The interesting part about this word is that it works for both the verb and the sound.<\/p>\n

6. Dog: jaulen<\/em>\u00a0<\/em>(howl)<\/h2>\n

Once again, a howl is also possible from other animals, but the sound comes out as jaulen <\/em><\/strong>in German. You’ll notice that this word works as a verb as well.<\/p>\n

7. Dog: bellen<\/em>\u00a0(bark)<\/h2>\n

The bark sound is possibly the most common noise you hear from your lovable canine friend, and in German you would hear a dog use the sound bellen<\/em><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Although bellen<\/em> works as a verb, it’s somewhat interchangeable with the bow-wow or woof woof noises above.<\/p>\n

8. Dog: kl\u00e4ffen<\/em>\u00a0(yap)<\/h2>\n

If your dog’s in distress she may give out a yap, and a German pooch would use the\u00a0kl\u00e4ffen<\/em><\/strong> sound. Once again, the\u00a0kl\u00e4ffen<\/em> sounds fits in a sentence as a verb.<\/p>\n

9. Cat: miau<\/em>\u00a0(meow)<\/h2>\n

Meow sounds exactly the same in German as it does in English, but you spell it as\u00a0miau<\/em><\/strong>. A cat, or\u00a0eine Katze<\/em><\/strong> in German, can be found in a group of cats, which is considered a clowder in English but has no direct translation in German.<\/p>\n

10. Cat: schnurren<\/em>\u00a0(purr)<\/h2>\n

Cats generally only make two sounds, so the second one is a purr. The purr sound is schnurren<\/em><\/strong> in German.<\/p>\n

These are some of the most common German animal sounds because cats and dogs are very popular as pets! You can hear these animal sounds and get to know more casual words you wouldn’t find on a textbook on FluentU.<\/p>\n

FluentU<\/strong> takes authentic videos\u2014like music videos, movie trailers, news and inspiring talks\u2014and turns them into personalized language learning lessons.<\/p>\r\n

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