German · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "der Morgen" in German?

Q: How do you pronounce der Morgen in German?

der Morgen is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /deːɐ̯ ˈmɔʁ.ɡn̩/. It means “morning (pl. Morgen).” dair MOR-gn. Identical in sound to the adverb morgen meaning tomorrow — only the capital letter separates them in writing.

dair MOR-gn. Identical in sound to the adverb morgen meaning tomorrow — only the capital letter separates them in writing.

der Morgen /deːɐ̯ ˈmɔʁ.ɡn̩/

Volume on MOR-, and the ending collapses to a hum. This noun has an unusual plural — die Morgen, identical to the singular — so nothing at all changes rhythmically between one morning and several, which is rare in German and worth filing away.

Listen: der Morgen

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Sound it out

M A simple m. Nothing about it differs from English.

or A short rounded o with the uvular r behind it, blending into the vowel.

g A hard g, kept voiced by the syllable break in front of it.

en Reduces to a syllabic n, so the word ends 'gn'.

Hear it in a sentence

Ich laufe jeden Morgen.

I run every morning.

Listen: Ich laufe jeden Morgen.

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Ich laufe jeden Morgen states a repeated time in the bare accusative, hence jeden with its masculine accusative ending. Laufe carries the 'ow' diphthong, so the sentence pairs a diphthong in the verb with a short rounded vowel in the noun.

Where English speakers slip

The overlap with the adverb morgen is the practical difficulty: written German distinguishes them by capitalisation, and spoken German does not distinguish them at all. Am Morgen means in the morning, morgen means tomorrow, and morgen früh means tomorrow morning. On the sound side, keep the o short — stretching it toward the English word more is the usual slip.