LingoDrop
German · Pronunciation Guide
How do you pronounce "der Teil" in German?
dair TILE. The ei is 'eye' and the l stays bright right to the end.
This root heads a long list of compounds — Teilzeit, Vorteil, Nachteil — where the stress goes to whichever element comes first. In Vorteil and Nachteil the prefix wins, so the root you are learning here ends up unstressed inside the very words that use it most.
Listen: der Teil
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Hear it in a sentence
Er ist Teil des Teams.
He's part of the team.
Listen: Er ist Teil des Teams.
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Er ist Teil des Teams drops the article before Teil, which German does in this fixed expression. Des marks the genitive, and Teams is an English borrowing that keeps its foreign plural -s — so a very German construction wraps around a very English noun.
Where English speakers slip
Reading ei as 'ee' gives 'teel', and darkening the l gives something closer to the English word tile than it should be. German wants the 'eye' diphthong with a bright l after it. Keep the tongue tip on the ridge behind your teeth as the diphthong finishes, and the vowel stays clean.