German · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "die Tochter" in German?

Q: How do you pronounce die Tochter in German?

die Tochter is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /diː ˈtɔx.tɐ/. It means “daughter (pl. Töchter).” dee TOKH-tuh. The ch is the throaty one after o, and the -er ending softens to 'uh'.

dee TOKH-tuh. The ch is the throaty one after o, and the -er ending softens to 'uh'.

die Tochter /diː ˈtɔx.tɐ/

The first syllable carries it and the second trails off. The plural Töchter fronts the vowel to a short ö, and — as with Nacht and Nächte — that fronting also flips the ch from the throaty variant to the soft one, since the sound follows the vowel rather than the spelling.

Listen: die Tochter

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Sound it out

T A clean t. It never flaps into a d the way American English does between vowels.

o Short o with real lip rounding and the tongue held back.

ch The ach-laut, selected by the back vowel in front of it.

ter A t opening the second syllable, then the -er ending reduced to a dark 'uh'.

Hear it in a sentence

Seine Tochter studiert Medizin.

His daughter studies medicine.

Listen: Seine Tochter studiert Medizin.

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Seine Tochter studiert Medizin contains two borrowings with back-stress: studiert puts its beat on the -iert ending, which is what every -ieren verb does, and Medizin stresses its final syllable. Studiert also opens on the 'sht' cluster.

Where English speakers slip

Substituting a k for the ch gives 'TOK-ter', which loses the word's most German feature and adds an English r on top. Fix both. Then note the plural: Töchter takes the soft hiss, so a learner who has just drilled the throaty ch in the singular has to unlearn it for the plural.