use strict; use warnings; my %umlaute = ( 'ö' => 'oe', 'ü' => 'ue', 'ä' => 'ae' ); my $var1 = "Dorfstr"; my $var2 = "Brandstroemweg"; for ($var1,$var2) { s/(ä|ü|ö)/$umlaute{$1}/g; s/str(?=\b)//g; print; } DorfBrandstroemweg