German · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "die Stunde" in German?

Q: How do you pronounce die Stunde in German?

die Stunde is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /diː ˈʃtʊn.də/. It means “hour (pl. Stunden).” dee SHTOON-duh. St at the start of a word is 'sht', the u is short, and the final e is a schwa.

dee SHTOON-duh. St at the start of a word is 'sht', the u is short, and the final e is a schwa.

die Stunde /diː ˈʃtʊn.də/

The noun carries its beat on the first syllable and the article sits ahead of it unstressed, giving the phrase a light-heavy-light shape. The plural Stunden replaces the schwa with a syllabic-n ending and changes nothing else, so the rhythm survives into the plural untouched.

Listen: die Stunde

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Sound it out

St 'sht' at the beginning of a word — the same rule that governs stark and Straße.

u Short 'oo' as in put, kept short by the two consonants after it.

nd No vowel intervenes — the first consonant releases directly into the second.

e An unstressed schwa, the ending that marks so many feminine nouns.

Hear it in a sentence

Der Film dauert zwei Stunden.

The movie lasts two hours.

Listen: Der Film dauert zwei Stunden.

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Der Film dauert zwei Stunden uses the plural without a preposition — German states duration in the bare accusative. Dauert has the 'ow' diphthong and a softened -ert ending, and zwei packs three spelling traps into four letters, so the sentence is denser than it looks.

Where English speakers slip

A plain st at the front gives 'STOON-de', which is the most common single error in a beginner's German because st- words are so frequent. Say sh, then t. The ending is the second point: German final -e is a colourless schwa, not the 'ay' or 'ee' that other European languages would give it.