German · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "helfen" in German?

Q: How do you pronounce helfen in German?

helfen is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /ˈhɛl.fn̩/. It means “to help (+ dative).” HELF-n. A breathed h, a short open e, a bright l, and an ending that collapses onto the n.

HELF-n. A breathed h, a short open e, a bright l, and an ending that collapses onto the n.

helfen /ˈhɛl.fn̩/

First syllable, with the third person changing the vowel to a short i: er hilft. That e-to-i alternation marks the strong-verb class and never disturbs the beat, so the word keeps the same shape while its stressed vowel changes identity underneath.

Listen: helfen

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Sound it out

h A genuinely breathed h. German never drops an h that opens a word.

e Short and open, with the jaw dropped a little further than in English bed.

l Bright and forward. English darkens l before f — think of self — and that darkening must not happen here.

fen An f released into a syllabic n.

Hear it in a sentence

Er hilft seiner Mutter.

He helps his mother.

Listen: Er hilft seiner Mutter.

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Er hilft seiner Mutter shows the crucial fact about this verb: it takes the dative, so it is seiner Mutter rather than seine Mutter. Nothing about the English translation predicts that, which is why the case has to be learned along with the verb. Hilft also displays the vowel change of the third person.

Where English speakers slip

English hollows out l before a consonant, and importing that gives a muffled 'hewf-n' where German wants a clean l with the tongue tip forward. The dative is the other half of the lesson, and it is the half learners get wrong for months — helfen never takes an accusative object, however much 'help someone' suggests otherwise.