German · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "glauben" in German?

Q: How do you pronounce glauben in German?

glauben is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /ˈɡlaʊ̯.bn̩/. It means “to believe / think.” GLOW-bn, with 'ow' as in house. Hard g, and an ending that collapses onto the n.

GLOW-bn, with 'ow' as in house. Hard g, and an ending that collapses onto the n.

glauben /ˈɡlaʊ̯.bn̩/

Stress on the diphthong in the first syllable, and it stays there through the whole conjugation — glaubst, glaubt, geglaubt. The past participle geglaubt adds an unstressed prefix at the front without disturbing the beat, which is the general behaviour of the ge- participle marker.

Listen: glauben

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Sound it out

gl A hard g and a bright, forward l, run together as in English glass.

au The 'ow' diphthong of house, opening wide and gliding toward 'oo'.

b A properly voiced consonant, sheltered from devoicing by the vowel behind it.

en Collapses onto the n. Careful speech allows a faint schwa, but ordinary speech does not.

Hear it in a sentence

Ich glaube, du hast recht.

I think you're right.

Listen: Ich glaube, du hast recht.

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Ich glaube, du hast recht drops the conjunction dass, which German permits after verbs of thinking and saying — and when dass goes, so does the verb-final word order, which is why it reads du hast recht rather than du recht hast. Recht haben is a fixed idiom: German has rightness rather than being right.

Where English speakers slip

The au gets read as 'aw' by English speakers, producing 'glawben'. It is always 'ow'. A separate difficulty is the missing dass, which learners restore out of caution and then forget to move the verb, producing a hybrid that is ungrammatical. Either say ich glaube, du hast recht, or say ich glaube, dass du recht hast — the two structures do not mix.