German · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "alt" in German?

Q: How do you pronounce alt in German?

alt is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /alt/. It means “old.” ALT with a short open 'ah', a bright l and a crisp t — the vowel of English alter, not the hollow one in all.

ALT with a short open 'ah', a bright l and a crisp t — the vowel of English alter, not the hollow one in all.

alt /alt/

Everything happens in a single beat, but the comparative reveals what the vowel is really doing: älter fronts the a to ä, and the superlative ältesten keeps that fronting. The stress stays welded to the root while the vowel changes colour, which is the usual German pattern for adjectives that take an umlaut in comparison.

Listen: alt

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Sound it out

a Short and open, preceded by a small glottal catch since the word begins on a vowel.

l Bright and forward, with the tongue tip on the ridge behind the top teeth. English darkens l before a consonant, which is exactly what must not happen here.

t A fully released t with a small burst of breath after it.

Hear it in a sentence

Das Haus ist sehr alt.

The house is very old.

Listen: Das Haus ist sehr alt.

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Das Haus ist sehr alt keeps the adjective bare after ist. Haus begins with a genuinely breathed h and ends on an unvoiced s after the 'ow' diphthong, while sehr has a long 'ay' with its r dissolving into a vowel — so the sentence quietly contains three of German's core vowel behaviours.

Where English speakers slip

The l is the giveaway. English speakers pronounce it with the back of the tongue raised, which drags the a backwards and produces something close to 'awlt'. Keep the tongue tip forward and the a bright. The t is a smaller matter but still audible: American speakers tend to swallow a final t, while German releases it clearly.