German · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "die Welt" in German?

Q: How do you pronounce die Welt in German?

die Welt is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /diː vɛlt/. It means “world (pl. Welten).” dee VELT. The w is a v, the e is short, and the l stays bright and forward.

dee VELT. The w is a v, the e is short, and the l stays bright and forward.

die Welt /diː vɛlt/

Weight on the noun, with the article unstressed in front. This root heads a large number of compounds — Weltkrieg, Weltmeister, weltweit — and in every one it keeps the primary stress, since German compounds put the weight on the first element without exception.

Listen: die Welt

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Sound it out

W Say a v. German w is a v in every word and every position, with no exceptions.

e The e of bet, kept short. It never drifts toward the 'ay' of bay.

l Clear and light, with the tongue tip up and the back of the tongue down.

t A fully released t with a small burst of breath after it.

Hear it in a sentence

Ich möchte die Welt sehen.

I want to see the world.

Listen: Ich möchte die Welt sehen.

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Ich möchte die Welt sehen uses the polite modal möchte, which has a short front-rounded ö and the soft ich-laut, and sends the infinitive sehen to the very end. Sehen has its silent h, so the sentence closes on two soft syllables after the crisp t of Welt.

Where English speakers slip

Reading w as an English w gives 'welt', which happens to be a real English word and therefore feels convincing. It is a v. The l is the second correction: English welt has a dark l that hollows the vowel, while German keeps both the l and the e bright and forward.