German · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "der Regen" in German?

dair RAY-gn. A throaty r, a long 'ay', and an ending that collapses onto the n.

der Regen /deːɐ̯ ˈʁeː.ɡn̩/

RE- carries everything and the ending is barely audible. The verb regnen is worth comparing: it drops the stressed vowel's length and rearranges the consonants, so the noun and the verb sound less alike than their spellings suggest.

Listen: der Regen

Free browser voice. Hear it read by a real native speaker inside the LingoDrop app.

Sound it out

R The uvular r at the start of a word, at its most audible — a light scrape at the back of the mouth.

e A long 'ay', stretched by the open syllable Re-.

g Hard g as in go, kept voiced by the vowel behind it.

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

Hear it in a sentence

Der Regen hört nicht auf.

The rain isn't stopping.

Listen: Der Regen hört nicht auf.

Free browser voice. Hear it read by a real native speaker inside the LingoDrop app.

Der Regen hört nicht auf splits aufhören, sending the prefix auf to the very end. Hört carries the long front-rounded ö, so the sentence has a back-of-throat r at the start and a rounded front vowel in the middle — a decent stretch across the mouth.

Where English speakers slip

An English r at the start is the giveaway, and shortening the e is the second habit — 'REG-en' is what an English eye supplies. The syllable is open, so the vowel is long. Finish by letting the ending collapse onto the n rather than giving it a full vowel of its own.