LingoDrop
German · Pronunciation Guide
How do you pronounce "das Blatt" in German?
dass BLAT. A short open a, kept short by the doubled t, and a bright l.
The vowel is clipped and there is nothing to spare. The plural Blätter fronts the vowel to a short ä and adds a softened -er ending, giving 'BLET-uh' — so both the vowel and the syllable count change, and the plural sounds noticeably unlike the singular.
Listen: das Blatt
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Sound it out
Hear it in a sentence
Ein Blatt fällt vom Baum.
A leaf falls from the tree.
Listen: Ein Blatt fällt vom Baum.
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Ein Blatt fällt vom Baum uses vom, the contraction of von and dem, and fällt shows the umlauted third-person form of fallen. Baum carries the 'ow' diphthong, so the sentence has a fronted ä in the verb and a back diphthong in the final noun.
Where English speakers slip
The l is the sound most likely to slip, since English blat and flat both allow a slightly darker l than German does — keep the tongue tip forward. The word also has two meanings, a leaf and a sheet of paper, which is why ein Blatt Papier works exactly as well as ein Blatt vom Baum.