LingoDrop
German · Pronunciation Guide
How do you pronounce "der Fisch" in German?
dair FISH. A short lax i and sch as a plain sh — the same sounds as the English word.
Short, closed and uncomplicated. The plural Fische adds a schwa after the sh, which is worth practising because the ending stays a light 'uh' rather than becoming the buzzing plural German has no equivalent of — German never voices a plural ending the way English does in fishes.
Listen: der Fisch
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Sound it out
Hear it in a sentence
Der Fisch schwimmt im Wasser.
The fish swims in the water.
Listen: Der Fisch schwimmt im Wasser.
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Der Fisch schwimmt im Wasser is harder than it looks: schwimmt opens with sh running into a v sound, a cluster English cannot produce, and Wasser needs the w as v. So the noun is the easy part and everything around it is not.
Where English speakers slip
The word itself is nearly identical to English, which lulls learners into carrying English habits into the words beside it — schwimmt gets flattened to 'shwimt' with an English w, and Wasser gets a w too. Also note that German spells this sound sch, so writing Fish rather than Fisch is a persistent spelling slip.