German · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "dürfen" in German?

Q: How do you pronounce dürfen in German?

dürfen is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /ˈdʏʁ.fn̩/. It means “may / to be allowed to.” DUERF-n. A short front-rounded ü, a throaty r blending into it, then f and a syllabic n.

DUERF-n. A short front-rounded ü, a throaty r blending into it, then f and a syllabic n.

dürfen /ˈdʏʁ.fn̩/

DÜR- keeps the beat, and like the other modals it abandons its umlaut in the singular: ich darf, du darfst, with a plain short a. The stress position is the one constant across the paradigm, which is worth leaning on when the vowels start shifting under you.

Listen: dürfen

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Sound it out

d A clean d with less breath after it than the English one.

ü Short and front-rounded: the tongue where it sits for the i in sit, the lips pursed. Kept short by the two consonants after it.

r Between a vowel and a consonant the r loses most of its consonantal character and colours the vowel instead, so ür comes out almost as a single sound.

fen An f released into a syllabic n.

Hear it in a sentence

Darf ich hier parken?

May I park here?

Listen: Darf ich hier parken?

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Darf ich hier parken? puts the modal first to form a yes-no question, with the infinitive at the end as usual. Parken is a borrowing from English but has been fully naturalised, taking the German -en ending and the same syllabic-n reduction as any native verb. Hier is a long 'ee' with the vocalised r.

Where English speakers slip

The ür sequence pulls English speakers straight to the vowel of fur or burn, which has the tongue in the middle of the mouth and an r built in. German needs the tongue forward, the lips rounded, and the r kept as a separate back-of-throat colouring. Practise the vowel alone first, then add the r behind it rather than merging them from the start.