German · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "die Straße" in German?

Q: How do you pronounce die Straße in German?

die Straße is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /diː ˈʃtʁaː.sə/. It means “street (pl. Straßen).” dee SHTRAH-suh. 'sht' plus a throaty r opens the word, the a is long, and the ß is a plain hissing s.

dee SHTRAH-suh. 'sht' plus a throaty r opens the word, the a is long, and the ß is a plain hissing s.

die Straße /diː ˈʃtʁaː.sə/

STRA- takes the beat and -ße stays light, and the stressed vowel is genuinely long — the ß tells you so before you have heard the word. The plural Straßen swaps the schwa for a syllabic-n ending and changes nothing else, so the rhythm survives intact.

Listen: die Straße

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Sound it out

Str A three-part onset: sh, then t, then the uvular r. English has str but with an English r and a plain s, so both halves need adjusting.

a Long and open, as in father. The ß after it confirms the length.

ß An unvoiced s. Modern spelling uses ß only after long vowels and diphthongs, so it doubles as a length cue.

e A schwa ending: the tongue at rest and the vowel barely coloured at all.

Hear it in a sentence

Die Straße ist heute gesperrt.

The street is closed today.

Listen: Die Straße ist heute gesperrt.

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Die Straße ist heute gesperrt ends on a past participle used adjectivally: gesperrt has the unstressed ge- prefix, the 'shp' cluster, and a doubled r keeping its vowel short. So the sentence opens and closes on sh-initial clusters of different shapes.

Where English speakers slip

The opening cluster is the hardest thing here, because three consonants have to be produced in order with the r at the back of the throat. Build it up: say sh, add t, then add the scraped r. The ß is the other trap, since it reads as a capital B to newcomers — it is an s, and here it also guarantees the a is long.