German · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "hallo" in German?

Q: How do you pronounce hallo in German?

hallo is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /ˈha.loː/. It means “hi / hello.” HAH-loh, with the punch on the first syllable and a clean, open 'ah' — not the flattened 'huh-LOW' of English hello.

HAH-loh, with the punch on the first syllable and a clean, open 'ah' — not the flattened 'huh-LOW' of English hello.

hallo /ˈha.loː/

Two syllables, HA-llo, and the first one wins — the exact opposite of English hello, which leans on the second. Germans do stretch it into a rising hal-LOO when calling across a room or answering an unknown number, but the everyday greeting keeps its weight up front.

Listen: hallo

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Sound it out

h A real, breathed h as in house. German never leaves an initial h silent, and it is never the throat-scraping sound learners import from Spanish.

a A short, open 'ah' as in father, cut off quickly. It must not soften into the 'uh' that English gives the first syllable of hello.

ll One light, forward l with the tongue tip on the ridge behind the top teeth. German has no dark l — the hollow l at the end of English full would sound foreign here.

o A pure, steady 'oh' held to the end without sliding. English 'oh' finishes on a small w; German stops the vowel where it started.

Hear it in a sentence

Hallo, wie geht's?

Hi, how are you?

Listen: Hallo, wie geht's?

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Hallo, wie geht's? shows the greeting doing what it does best: standing alone before a comma with no verb attached. The apostrophe in geht's is a swallowed es, so the phrase ends in a crisp ts cluster — GATES, not 'gate ess'. Note too that wie comes out 'vee', an early taste of the w-equals-v rule.

Where English speakers slip

English hello sits so close in shape that most beginners just say it with a German accent, which puts the stress on the wrong syllable and reduces the first vowel to a mumble. German wants a full 'ah' up front and the loudness there too. The other slip comes at the end: English speakers round the final o off into 'ow', while German keeps it one held vowel that never moves.