German · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "der Polizist" in German?

Q: How do you pronounce der Polizist in German?

der Polizist is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /deːɐ̯ poliˈtsɪst/. It means “police officer (pl. Polizisten).” dair po-li-TSIST. The z is 'ts' and the beat lands on the final syllable.

dair po-li-TSIST. The z is 'ts' and the beat lands on the final syllable.

der Polizist /deːɐ̯ poliˈtsɪst/

The -ist suffix always takes the stress in German, which makes this one of the more predictable back-stressed patterns — Tourist, Journalist, Artist all behave the same way. The word is also a weak masculine noun, adding -en outside the nominative singular.

Listen: der Polizist

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Sound it out

Po A short unstressed o, passed over quickly on the way to the beat.

li A short unstressed i and a bright l.

z 'ts', opening the stressed syllable.

ist A short i and a plain s plus t. This is the end of a word, so the 'sht' rule does not apply.

Hear it in a sentence

Der Polizist hilft dem Touristen.

The police officer helps the tourist.

Listen: Der Polizist hilft dem Touristen.

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Der Polizist hilft dem Touristen shows helfen taking the dative, hence dem, and Touristen carrying the weak-noun -en ending. Tourist is stressed on its final syllable too, so the sentence has two back-stressed nouns and one front-stressed verb.

Where English speakers slip

English instinct pulls the beat forward to 'PO-lizist', which English instinct supplies and German rejects — the -ist suffix always wins. The z is the second correction, always 'ts'. And the final st stays plain, since the rule that would make it 'sht' operates only at the start of a word or stem.