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German · Pronunciation Guide
How do you pronounce "der Schnee" in German?
dair SHNAY. sch runs straight into n, and the ee is a long 'ay'.
A heavy consonant onset leads into one long vowel. The word is uncountable in everyday use, so there is no plural rhythm to compare — and compounds such as Schneeball and Schneemann keep the beat here while adding a secondary one on the second element.
Listen: der Schnee
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Hear it in a sentence
In den Bergen liegt Schnee.
There's snow in the mountains.
Listen: In den Bergen liegt Schnee.
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In den Bergen liegt Schnee uses the dative plural den Bergen with its added -n, and liegt shows a devoiced g hardening to k before the t. Fronting the prepositional phrase pushes the verb ahead of the subject, so Schnee ends up last and carries the sentence's main stress.
Where English speakers slip
Two things go wrong: the cluster gets simplified to 'sn', and the ee gets read as 'ee'. Neither is close. Build the onset by holding the sh before the n arrives, and remember that German ee is 'ay' — so the word rhymes with the English word neigh rather than knee.