German · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "das Schwein" in German?

dass SHVINE. sch is sh, w is v, and ei is 'eye'.

das Schwein /das ʃvaɪ̯n/

The diphthong holds the whole beat, with a heavy consonant onset in front of it. The plural Schweine adds a schwa and changes nothing else, so the cluster is the only real difficulty in either form.

Listen: das Schwein

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

Sound it out

Schw sh running straight into a v sound. English has no such cluster, so it needs deliberate practice: hold the sh, then bring the teeth to the lip.

ei 'Eye' — the same sound as the English pronoun I.

n The closing n is clear and complete — German does not swallow it.

Hear it in a sentence

Das Schwein lebt auf dem Bauernhof.

The pig lives on the farm.

Listen: Das Schwein lebt auf dem Bauernhof.

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

Das Schwein lebt auf dem Bauernhof uses the dative dem for location. Bauernhof is a compound with the stress on BAU-, and it contains the 'ow' diphthong, a softened -ern ending, and a devoiced f-final second element — a lot of German packed into one word.

Where English speakers slip

The shv cluster gets smoothed into 'shw' with an English w, which is the standard simplification. Hold the sh and then make a genuine v. The diphthong is the second check: reading ei as 'ee' gives 'shveen', and the word should rhyme with the English word shine.