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German · Pronunciation Guide
How do you pronounce "das Gras" in German?
dass GRAHS. A hard g, a throaty r, a long open a, and a final s that hisses.
Length is the feature to hold on to here. There is no everyday plural, so the length of that vowel is a fixed feature of the word — and it is a genuinely long 'ah', noticeably more drawn out than the vowel English gives its own word grass in most accents.
Listen: das Gras
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Hear it in a sentence
Die Kinder sitzen im Gras.
The children are sitting in the grass.
Listen: Die Kinder sitzen im Gras.
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Die Kinder sitzen im Gras uses im with the dative for a location, and sitzen has tz pronounced 'ts'. Kinder shows the softened -er ending, so the sentence contains a plural noun, a ts affricate and a long vowel in quick succession.
Where English speakers slip
The vowel length is the main thing: English grass is comparatively clipped, and German holds the 'ah' considerably longer. The r is the second correction, moving from the middle of the mouth to the back of the throat — which, in this cluster, actually makes it easier to produce than an English r would be.