German · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "sieben" in German?

Q: How do you pronounce sieben in German?

sieben is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /ˈziː.bn̩/. It means “seven.” ZEE-bn. A voiced z at the front, a long 'ee' from ie, and an ending that collapses to a syllabic n.

ZEE-bn. A voiced z at the front, a long 'ee' from ie, and an ending that collapses to a syllabic n.

sieben /ˈziː.bn̩/

Stress on SIE-, which makes seven audibly longer than everything around it when counting — it is the only two-syllable number between one and ten, and Germans keep its rhythm firmly heavy-light rather than evening it out.

Listen: sieben

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

Sound it out

s Voiced, so it sounds like English z — the same rule that governs sagen and Sonne.

ie Long 'ee'. Keep the pairing straight: ie is 'ee', ei is 'eye'.

b A fully voiced b, because it begins a syllable rather than ending the word.

en Reduces to a syllabic n, so the word finishes 'bn' with no vowel wedged between.

Hear it in a sentence

Der Zug fährt um sieben.

The train leaves at seven.

Listen: Der Zug fährt um sieben.

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

Der Zug fährt um sieben has fährt with an umlaut, the third-person form of fahren: the a fronts to ä in the du and er forms of many strong verbs. Zug opens with the ts of z and ends with a devoiced g, so it comes out 'tsook' rather than 'tsoog'.

Where English speakers slip

Learners regularly read ie as two sounds or as the 'eye' of pie, producing 'SIGH-ben'. It is a plain long 'ee'. The initial s is the other habit to break: German voices it here, so the word starts with the buzz of zebra, and hissing it makes the whole thing sound clipped and imported.