German · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "mir" in German?

Q: How do you pronounce mir in German?

mir is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /miːɐ̯/. It means “(to) me.” Close to MEER, except that the r softens into a faint 'uh' instead of being trilled or curled: 'MEE-uh'.

Close to MEER, except that the r softens into a faint 'uh' instead of being trilled or curled: 'MEE-uh'.

mir /miːɐ̯/

One syllable, but as a dative pronoun mir usually rides unstressed in the flow of a sentence, leaning on the verb beside it. When someone wants to insist — give it to ME — the stress lands here and the long ee stretches further to carry the weight.

Listen: mir

Free browser voice. Hear it read by a real native speaker inside the LingoDrop app.

Sound it out

m A plain m, lips together and the voice on.

i Long 'ee' as in see. A single vowel letter before a single r in a stressed syllable comes out long.

r At the end of a syllable German r stops behaving like a consonant and melts into a short, dark 'uh'. Non-rhotic English speakers already do exactly this in beer and here.

Hear it in a sentence

Kannst du mir helfen?

Can you help me?

Listen: Kannst du mir helfen?

Free browser voice. Hear it read by a real native speaker inside the LingoDrop app.

Kannst du mir helfen? shows why the form is mir and not mich: helfen is one of the German verbs that takes a dative object rather than an accusative one. The question also flips the word order, putting kannst first and pushing helfen right to the end, so the sentence closes on a syllabic n.

Where English speakers slip

American learners reach for the retroflex r of mere, curling the tongue back — something German never does at the end of a syllable. British and Australian speakers are already closer, since their beer ends in the same vowel-plus-schwa shape. The other slip is shortening the vowel toward the i of mirror, when the German vowel is a full, long 'ee'.