German · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "sauber" in German?

Q: How do you pronounce sauber in German?

sauber is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /ˈzaʊ̯.bɐ/. It means “clean.” ZOW-buh. The s buzzes like a z, the au is 'ow' as in house, and the -er ending softens to 'uh'.

ZOW-buh. The s buzzes like a z, the au is 'ow' as in house, and the -er ending softens to 'uh'.

sauber /ˈzaʊ̯.bɐ/

SAU- is loud and -ber is not, giving the standard heavy-light shape. When adjective endings arrive the stem often loses its e — saubre rather than sauberе — because German dislikes stacking unstressed vowels, and the rhythm stays compact as a result.

Listen: sauber

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Sound it out

s Voiced at the start of a word before a vowel.

au The vowel of cow. German au is fixed and never wavers.

b Voiced throughout — devoicing strikes only at the end of a syllable, and this is a beginning.

er Reduced to a dark 'uh'. No r consonant survives, so the word ends on a vowel.

Hear it in a sentence

Die Küche ist sauber.

The kitchen is clean.

Listen: Die Küche ist sauber.

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Die Küche ist sauber contains a valuable ch: Küche has a front-rounded ü, and that front vowel selects the soft ich-laut, not the throaty one. Learners who assume every ch in a word with u or o is throaty get this wrong — it is the umlaut that decides.

Where English speakers slip

A hissed initial s gives 'SOW-ber' and pronouncing a real r at the end compounds it. German voices the initial s and dissolves the final r into a vowel. The diphthong is usually fine for English speakers, since au equals 'ow' matches the vowel in the English word sour, but check that it does not drift toward 'aw'.