German · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "der Sport" in German?

Q: How do you pronounce der Sport in German?

der Sport is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /deːɐ̯ ʃpɔʁt/. It means “sport.” dair SHPORT. At the start of a word sp is 'shp', so this borrowing sounds nothing like its English source.

dair SHPORT. At the start of a word sp is 'shp', so this borrowing sounds nothing like its English source.

der Sport /deːɐ̯ ʃpɔʁt/

There is nothing to place in a one-syllable word, and almost all the interest is in the opening cluster. The word has no everyday plural — German uses Sportarten for kinds of sport — so the shape never changes, which makes it a clean word for drilling the shp onset until it becomes automatic.

Listen: der Sport

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Sound it out

Sp 'shp' at the beginning of a word. German applies this rule even to words it has taken from English.

o Short and rounded. English speakers under-round this vowel more than any other.

r Before a consonant the uvular r darkens the vowel rather than sounding separately.

t Fully pronounced and released — no soft landing on this consonant.

Hear it in a sentence

Ich mache dreimal pro Woche Sport.

I do sports three times a week.

Listen: Ich mache dreimal pro Woche Sport.

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Ich mache dreimal pro Woche Sport uses the idiom Sport machen, since German has no verb equivalent to 'do sports' on its own. Dreimal is a compound of drei and mal with the number taking the stress, and pro is a borrowing meaning per.

Where English speakers slip

Because the word looks exactly like the English one, learners simply say the English word — and the plain sp gives them away instantly. German has naturalised this borrowing completely, so it takes 'shp' like Spiel and sprechen. The r is the second change, moving from the middle of the mouth to the back.