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German · Pronunciation Guide
How do you pronounce "sehr" in German?
ZAIR, or 'ZAY-uh'. A voiced s, a long 'ay' marked by the silent h, and an r that melts into a vowel.
As an intensifier this word usually carries a fair amount of emphasis — it is doing the job of very, so speakers lean on it. That gives the long vowel real duration, which in turn makes the vocalised r at the end more audible than it would be in an unstressed word.
Listen: sehr
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Hear it in a sentence
Das Essen ist sehr gut.
The food is very good.
Listen: Das Essen ist sehr gut.
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Das Essen ist sehr gut has Essen opening on a glottal catch, so there is a small break between ist and Essen. The intensifier then attaches to gut, and because gut also has a long vowel, the last two words of the sentence are both slow and open — a very characteristic German cadence.
Where English speakers slip
English speakers hiss the s and produce 'sair', and adding a real r at the end produces something worse. German buzzes the s and dissolves the r. Non-rhotic English speakers have an advantage here, since their pronunciation of the word sir is close to the vowel target — the only change needed is starting with a buzz instead of a hiss.