German · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "das Essen" in German?

dass ESS-n. A small glottal catch, a short open e, and an ending that collapses onto the n.

das Essen /das ˈɛ.sn̩/

Loud at the front, swallowed at the back — the same rhythm as the infinitive essen, because that is exactly what this noun is. German turns any verb into a neuter noun by capitalising it, and the stress and vowels carry over unchanged.

Listen: das Essen

Free browser voice. Hear it read by a real native speaker inside the LingoDrop app.

Sound it out

E Short and open, as in bed, preceded by a light glottal stop because the word begins on a vowel.

ss An unvoiced hiss, doubled to mark the vowel short.

en Reduces to a syllabic n: the vowel disappears and the n becomes the whole syllable.

Hear it in a sentence

Das Essen war lecker.

The food was delicious.

Listen: Das Essen war lecker.

Free browser voice. Hear it read by a real native speaker inside the LingoDrop app.

Das Essen war lecker has lecker with a short e held short by its ck and a softened -er ending, giving 'LECK-uh'. There is a small glottal catch between das and Essen, which stops the two words fusing into a single run of sound.

Where English speakers slip

English speakers glide das straight into Essen, producing 'da-sessen'. German inserts a hard onset before the vowel, which keeps the article and the noun audibly separate. Beyond that, the -en ending needs to collapse onto the n rather than keeping a full vowel, which is what makes the word sound spoken rather than spelled out.