Is Kilometer ever pronounced as 'kaa em' in German?

Question

I am Dutch and I would like to understand if a German native speaker would understand if I pronounce the 'km' abbreviation of the word 'Kilometer' as 'kaa em'.

I think it's more common to just say Kilometer instead of "kaa em", but that would be the way to pronounce the letters. — infinitezero, Apr 02 '20 at 21:24
The famous poem by Christian Morgenstern has to be mentioned here. — guidot, Apr 02 '20 at 22:03
Off topic: It's the same situation in Czech Language too. The km abbreviation is mostly said as kilometr and sometimes (infrequently) as "kaa em". — mishan, Apr 03 '20 at 12:09
Out of curiosity (as a Dutch person myself), do you ever use 'kaa em' in Dutch? — tjalling, Apr 03 '20 at 15:23
Yes, especially when saying km/h as "kar-em-har" (ka: ɛm̩ ha:). — Peter - Reinstate Monica, Apr 03 '20 at 17:08
In Danish (which is one country over) we never say kay-em. We have a dislike for abbreviations - I just realize I don't know why. — Thorbjørn Ravn Andersen, Apr 05 '20 at 19:01
Being Dutch and 59 years old, I have never heard anyone say ka-em. — Jan Doggen, Apr 06 '20 at 10:05

cbeleites unhappy with SX · Answer 1 · 2020-04-03T18:12:36.210

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"km" is usually pronounced as Kilometer, ka em [kaː ʔɛm] is at least where I am very unusual in everyday spoken German.
ka em may be encountered more frequently in ka em ha [kaː ʔɛm haː] (km/h, the slash/division not being pronounced) as an alternative to saying "Stundenkilometer" colloquially, sometimes also Kilometer in der Stunde (sounds somewhat old-fashioned to me) or Kilometer pro Stunde.

Other units that are fequently pronounced abbreviated are kW [kaː veː] and sometimes also kWh [kaː veː haː], maybe also MW and MWh (but W, Wh, GW or GWh are usually pronounced in their "long form") and as some other answers already point out also storage capacity units may be pronounced in the abbreviated form.
μm are sometimes pronounced mü [myː].

While these "abbreviations" are common in everyday spoken language, noone would think it odd to pronounce the long form for any of these.

edited Apr 03 '20 at 18:12

answered Apr 02 '20 at 21:34

cbeleites unhappy with SX

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... and "Stundenkilometer" is already a (popular) alternative to the more correct "Kilometer pro Stunde". – Nobody Apr 03 '20 at 14:04
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Maybe you could add the IPA notation. – mtwde Apr 03 '20 at 16:14
@mtwde: Done. Can you please check whether I got it right and correct it if not? – cbeleites unhappy with SX Apr 03 '20 at 18:13
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@Nobody Note that Stundenkilomater fits ointo the common pattern of expressing A/B as "BA" (Jahresumsatz, Wochenarbeitsstunden, ...) – Hagen von Eitzen Apr 04 '20 at 20:57
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I agree that "ka-em" is seldomly used (sometimes when reading) but "ka-em-hah" is very often colloquial used for Stundenkilometer (km/h) – eckes Apr 05 '20 at 12:29
Pronouncing "μm" as "mü" is possibly localized. I've never heard this phrase being used, and instead always have heard and used "Mikrometer". – MechMK1 Apr 06 '20 at 09:36

Marc Vaisband · Answer 2 · 2020-04-04T09:53:52.970

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It would absolutely never be pronounced kaa em if talking about kilometers. As cbeleites unhappy with SX noted, km/h is actually often pronounced kaa em haa, but that is the exception. Usually, units are pronounced completely. Wh are Wattstunden, J in physics is always pronounced Joule, etc., and everything else would sound incredibly weird and out of place, like a physicist pronouncing kg as kay gee in English.

The only other exception I can think of is PS, which everyone just pronounces pe es, mostly because "Pferdestärken" is very archaic.

edited Apr 04 '20 at 09:53

answered Apr 03 '20 at 10:41

Marc Vaisband

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Another exception to the complete pronunciation: many people in many language shorten "kilogram" to "kilo", and I believe German is no exception. Or is it? – gerrit Apr 03 '20 at 12:36
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Marc, be aware though that the pronunciation 'kay-gee' is the norm in India. Yes it sounds funny and wrong in the US (if they even know what a kg is) – Aganju Apr 03 '20 at 13:22
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kB, MB, GB and TB are often pronounced with their respective letters instead of "Gigabyte". – infinitezero Apr 03 '20 at 13:40
@gerrit You are of course correct, though with relation to the question, "kilo" still is pronounced as a full word instead of pronouncing the letters separately. – Marc Vaisband Apr 03 '20 at 14:00
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@infinitezero I dispute your "often" assertion. I can personally attest that German speaking computer scientists usually don't abbreviate like that, and neither do most laypeople. – Nobody Apr 03 '20 at 14:02
Yeah, just to avoid confusion between base 10 and base 2. Some say "Mib", "Gib", etc for base 2 if it's not clear from context. Or they say base 10 (Mega-, Giga-, ....) but mean base 2 ("Mebi-" etc.). Same in English ? – Apr 03 '20 at 14:53
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This advertisement mixes both the abbreviation and the long form: Media Markt | Laptop If it's used in public advertisement, I would argue that "often" counts. – infinitezero Apr 03 '20 at 15:50
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I have to second @infinitezero. I have heard '16 MB RAM' ('emm-bee'), '56K-Modem' (with 'kaa' instead of the proper unit) or '5-GB-Internetflatrate' ('gee-bee') etc. quite "often". – Frank from Frankfurt Apr 03 '20 at 16:17
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Wh are Wattstunden and W are Watt, but with kW, kWh and less frequently MW and MWh one may encounter the "abbreviated pronounciation" – cbeleites unhappy with SX Apr 03 '20 at 18:17
As a n American, I often pronounce kB, MB, GB, and TB as the letters instead of the full words, altho the full words are used often fully pronounced as well. – shieldgenerator7 Apr 04 '20 at 06:10
I will edit my answer and maybe substitute a less controversial unit than TB, seeing how it does not necessarily add to the question asked about kilometers. Hopefully, J for Joule will be more consistent. – Marc Vaisband Apr 04 '20 at 09:53
@FrankfromFrankfurt definitely yes for “MB RAM”. At least in the 90s and 2000s, it seemed to be common to describe a computer like “800 Meggabeits, 128 Emmberahm” (with the former referring to hard disk size). Likewise, “sechsnfünfzikaa” is pretty much a fixed term. But apart from such combinations (like also km/h), units are indeed almost always spelled out completely. – leftaroundabout Apr 04 '20 at 13:31
I have also heard Megabyte and Gigabyte shortened as "Meg" and "Gig", but as many posters already stated, IT is an exception, apart from that units are hardly ever abbrevated in spoken German. – Volker Landgraf Apr 04 '20 at 19:19
@Aganju Pronouncing kg as kay jee isn’t all that uncommon colloquially in BrE and AmE either. – Janus Bahs Jacquet Apr 04 '20 at 19:58
@Nobody And as a German Computer Scientist myself I can personally attest that "MB" and "KB" (or even just k) are pretty common abbreviations. GB and upwards not so much. Just this week I had a conversation with a colleague about what he was doing with his "64 KB" ATmega. – Voo Apr 05 '20 at 09:21

score 5 · Answer 3 · answered Apr 03 '20 at 21:41

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"km" is not pronounced 'kaa em'. However, if you are referring to "kmh" (kilometers per hour), it is often pronounced 'kaa em haa'.

answered Apr 03 '20 at 21:41

wwman

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score 4 · Answer 4 · answered Apr 03 '20 at 15:04

It is spoken as abbreviation rarely, but there are exceptions.

If you have to read a long list of such abbreviations, you probably would use the shorter "ka emm", or in a professional context, where it is used often, it might get a habit, as in the IT field, where MB is often used in abbreviated form.

Another situation might be a citation of a written text, where you like to be absolute accurate, especially if from the context it is clear, that you are talking about kilometers.

Is Kilometer ever pronounced as 'kaa em' in German?

4 Answers4