German · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "der" in German?

Q: How do you pronounce der in German?

der is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /deːɐ̯/. It means “the (masculine).” DAIR — a long 'ay' vowel followed by the r melting into a soft 'uh'. Never a mumbled 'duh'.

DAIR — a long 'ay' vowel followed by the r melting into a soft 'uh'. Never a mumbled 'duh'.

der /deːɐ̯/

Articles are unstressed by default and lean on the noun behind them. But der doubles as a demonstrative, and in that job it gets the full beat and a stretched vowel — DER war es, meaning 'HE was the one', is a completely different rhythm from der Hund, where the article barely registers.

Listen: der

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Sound it out

d A crisp d with the tongue on the ridge behind the top teeth.

e Long 'ay', held flat without gliding into 'ee'. This vowel keeps its full quality even though the word is unstressed, which is where German differs sharply from English.

r Vocalised into a dark 'uh'. There is no r consonant left at all, so the word ends on a two-part vowel.

Hear it in a sentence

Der Hund schläft.

The dog is sleeping.

Listen: Der Hund schläft.

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Der Hund schläft is about as compact as German gets, and it hides two devoicing traps: Hund ends in a t sound, not a d, and schläft opens on sh with a long ä. The verb sits second, as it must, even though there are only two words in the sentence.

Where English speakers slip

English reduces unstressed function words to a schwa — the, a, of all collapse into a mumble — and learners transfer that habit, producing 'duh' or a swallowed 'der'. German does not reduce this vowel: it stays a full, long 'ay'. The second half of the fix is the ending, where American speakers add a real r; standard German has only a vowel there.