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German · Pronunciation Guide
How do you pronounce "der Bus" in German?
dair BOOSS. A short but properly rounded 'oo' and an unvoiced final s.
Short and closed, with nowhere for emphasis to move. The plural Busse doubles the s in writing to keep the vowel short and adds an unstressed schwa, so the s stays unvoiced in the plural too — unlike Haus and Häuser, where the ending changes what happens to the consonant.
Listen: der Bus
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Hear it in a sentence
Der Bus kommt in fünf Minuten.
The bus comes in five minutes.
Listen: Der Bus kommt in fünf Minuten.
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Der Bus kommt in fünf Minuten uses in with the dative for a span of time. Fünf has the short front-rounded ü, and Minuten stresses its middle syllable, mi-NU-ten, because Latin borrowings do not follow the German front-stress rule.
Where English speakers slip
The English word bus has an unrounded central vowel and often a voiced s in connected speech. German wants a rounded short 'oo' and a clean unvoiced hiss. Because the two words are spelled identically, the German version needs conscious attention every time — the spelling gives you no reminder that anything has changed.