German · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "der Park" in German?

Q: How do you pronounce der Park in German?

der Park is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /deːɐ̯ paʁk/. It means “park (pl. Parks).” dair PARK. Spelled like the English word, but the r is a scrape at the back of the throat rather than a curl of the tongue.

dair PARK. Spelled like the English word, but the r is a scrape at the back of the throat rather than a curl of the tongue.

der Park /deːɐ̯ paʁk/

Short and closed, with the r doing more than the vowel. The plural Parks takes an -s ending, marking the word as a borrowing — German native nouns almost never form plurals this way, so an -s plural is a reliable clue that a word came in from English or French.

Listen: der Park

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Sound it out

P A p with a small puff of air.

a Open and brief — the a of father with the length removed.

r The uvular r before a consonant, darkening the vowel rather than sounding as a separate consonant.

k A crisp k closing the word.

Hear it in a sentence

Wir laufen im Park.

We run in the park.

Listen: Wir laufen im Park.

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Wir laufen im Park contracts in and dem into im, with the dative marking location. Laufen carries the 'ow' diphthong, so the sentence pairs a diphthong in the verb with the r-darkened short vowel of the noun.

Where English speakers slip

Because the spelling is identical to English, learners simply say the English word — and the r gives them away immediately. German has re-pronounced this borrowing with its own uvular r, which darkens the a from the back of the mouth rather than curling the tongue forward. Everything else about the word is unchanged, which makes the r the whole exercise.