German · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "der Name" in German?

dair NAH-muh. A long open a and a real schwa at the end — two syllables, not one.

der Name /deːɐ̯ ˈnaː.mə/

Heavy then light, with the long a taking everything. This is a weak masculine noun, so it adds -n outside the nominative singular — den Namen, dem Namen — and each of those endings is unstressed, so the extra syllable never disturbs the rhythm.

Listen: der Name

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Sound it out

N An n, identical to the English sound.

a Long and open, as in father. Nothing like the diphthong in English name.

m A plain m, lips closed and the voice running through it.

e An unstressed schwa, fully pronounced and never silent.

Hear it in a sentence

Wie ist dein Name?

What's your name?

Listen: Wie ist dein Name?

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Wie ist dein Name? asks 'how is your name', not 'what is', which is the German idiom and needs to be learned as such. Dein takes no ending before a masculine nominative noun, and the whole question is a fixed phrase worth memorising rather than assembling.

Where English speakers slip

English name has a diphthong and a silent e, and both features get imported, giving a one-syllable word. German has a long, steady 'ah' and a genuinely pronounced schwa afterwards. Say 'NAH' then 'muh' as two separate beats, and the word stops sounding like an English cognate.