LingoDrop
German · Pronunciation Guide
How do you pronounce "blau" in German?
BLOW rhyming with cow, not with snow. German au is the 'ow' of how.
A single syllable carrying the whole beat. Adding an adjective ending gives the word another syllable but no new stress point — blaues is BLAU-es, with the diphthong still dominant and the ending reduced to almost nothing.
Listen: blau
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Hear it in a sentence
Ich trage ein blaues Hemd.
I'm wearing a blue shirt.
Listen: Ich trage ein blaues Hemd.
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Ich trage ein blaues Hemd adds -es to the adjective because Hemd is neuter and follows ein, which gives away no gender information of its own — so the adjective has to supply it. Hemd ends in a devoiced d, pronounced t, and trage has a schwa after its throaty r.
Where English speakers slip
The spelling looks like English blue with a stray letter attached, and learners sometimes say exactly that. German au is unambiguous: 'ow'. Beyond that, the word appears constantly with endings — blaue, blauen, blaues — and beginners lengthen and stress those endings; keep them short and flat so the diphthong stays the centre of gravity.