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German · Pronunciation Guide
How do you pronounce "der Urlaub" in German?
dair OOR-lowp. A glottal catch, a long 'oo' with the r softening into a vowel, and a final b that hardens to a p.
Ur- gets the beat, with -laub following more quietly. The plural Urlaube adds a schwa, which restores the b's voicing — so the singular ends hard and the plural softens, which is the same alternation as Kind and Kinder in a compound setting.
Listen: der Urlaub
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Hear it in a sentence
Wir fahren im August in Urlaub.
We're going on vacation in August.
Listen: Wir fahren im August in Urlaub.
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Wir fahren im August in Urlaub uses the fixed phrase in Urlaub fahren with no article at all. August is worth noting on its own: it stresses its second syllable, au-GUST, which is unusual among the months and easy to get wrong.
Where English speakers slip
The final b gets voiced by nearly every learner, since the spelling shows a b and the word does not look like an obvious devoicing case. It hardens to p. The month in the example is the other trap, because English August is front-stressed and German is not.