German · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "die Woche" in German?

Q: How do you pronounce die Woche in German?

die Woche is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /diː ˈvɔ.xə/. It means “week (pl. Wochen).” dee VOKH-uh. The w is a v, the ch is the throaty one after o, and the final e is a schwa.

dee VOKH-uh. The w is a v, the ch is the throaty one after o, and the final e is a schwa.

die Woche /diː ˈvɔ.xə/

WO- is loud and -che is light. The compound Wochenende builds on this word and keeps the beat on WO-, so the root's rhythm survives into the longer form — which is the general behaviour of German compounds, where the first element wins.

Listen: die Woche

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Sound it out

W English v — top teeth on the bottom lip. German w never sounds like an English w.

o A brief rounded o, the vowel in British dog.

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

e A colourless final vowel. It is never silent and never 'ay'.

Hear it in a sentence

Wir bleiben eine Woche in Wien.

We're staying in Vienna for a week.

Listen: Wir bleiben eine Woche in Wien.

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Wir bleiben eine Woche in Wien puts three w spellings in one sentence — wir, Woche and Wien — and every one of them is a v. Wien holds a long 'ee' from its ie, and the accusative eine Woche states a duration with no preposition, which is the German pattern.

Where English speakers slip

Two of the three sounds are traps for an English reader: the w wants to be a w and the ch wants to be a k, giving 'WOK-uh'. Both need fixing. The schwa at the end is the third check, since English instinct either drops a final e entirely or turns it into 'ay', where German wants a colourless 'uh'.