German · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "die Farbe" in German?

Q: How do you pronounce die Farbe in German?

die Farbe is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /diː ˈfaʁ.bə/. It means “color (pl. Farben).” dee FAR-buh. The r after the vowel is a soft throat-scrape, and the final e is a schwa you have to actually pronounce.

dee FAR-buh. The r after the vowel is a soft throat-scrape, and the final e is a schwa you have to actually pronounce.

die Farbe /diː ˈfaʁ.bə/

Two syllables, stress on FAR-, and -be kept light. That heavy-light shape is the default for German nouns ending in -e, and it survives into the plural, where FAR-ben keeps exactly the same rhythm.

Listen: die Farbe

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Sound it out

F A plain f, top teeth against the lower lip.

ar A short a coloured by the uvular r behind it. That r is a light scrape at the back of the mouth, not an American curl, and it partly merges into the vowel.

b Fully voiced, since it opens the second syllable instead of closing the word.

e An unstressed schwa, the 'uh' ending sofa. It is the signature of countless feminine nouns.

Hear it in a sentence

Welche Farbe hat dein Auto?

What color is your car?

Listen: Welche Farbe hat dein Auto?

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Welche Farbe hat dein Auto? opens with welche, which agrees with the feminine Farbe. Auto is 'OW-toh' with the au diphthong, and hat is the third-person form of haben. Notice that German asks which colour your car HAS, where English asks what colour it is.

Where English speakers slip

The biggest slip is treating the final -e as silent, on the model of English face or wave, which leaves the non-word 'farb'. German pronounces every written e unless it is part of ie or a length-marking pair. The r is the other half of the problem: English speakers curl the tongue for it, while German scrapes faintly at the back and lets the sound colour the a in front of it.