German · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "sagen" in German?

Q: How do you pronounce sagen in German?

sagen is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /ˈzaː.ɡn̩/. It means “to say / tell.” ZAH-gn. A buzzing z, a long open a, a hard g, and a syllabic n at the end.

ZAH-gn. A buzzing z, a long open a, a hard g, and a syllabic n at the end.

sagen /ˈzaː.ɡn̩/

First syllable, ending unstressed. What is worth noticing is how much the unstressed syllable can shrink — the difference between careful SA-gen and rapid 'zahng' is entirely a matter of register, and the stressed vowel stays long and stable through all of it.

Listen: sagen

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Sound it out

s Voiced rather than hissed, which is what German always does in this position.

a Long and open. The open syllable sa- stretches it.

g Hard, as in go. German g is never soft.

en Reduces to a syllabic n. In quick northern speech the g and n fuse further into a single 'ng', giving something close to 'ZAHNG'.

Hear it in a sentence

Er sagt nichts.

He says nothing.

Listen: Er sagt nichts.

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Er sagt nichts drops the e from the ending, which puts the g at the end of a syllable — and there it devoices to k, so the form sounds like 'zahkt'. That is the same rule that hardens final b, d and g throughout German, and this verb shows it changing within a single conjugation.

Where English speakers slip

English speakers hiss the s and shorten the a, arriving at something like 'saggen'. Both need fixing: buzz the s, stretch the a. The devoicing in sagt is the more interesting trap, because learners who have learned to say a soft g in the infinitive keep it in the conjugated form, where German has already hardened it to k.