LingoDrop
German · Pronunciation Guide
How do you pronounce "vor" in German?
FOR, or 'FOH-uh'. German v is f, the o is long, and the r melts into a vowel.
As a preposition it hands its stress to the noun that follows. As a separable prefix it does the opposite and takes the main beat of the whole verb — VORstellen, VORbereiten — so this small word is either the quietest or the loudest part of its phrase depending on what it is attached to.
Listen: vor
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Sound it out
Hear it in a sentence
Wir treffen uns vor dem Hotel.
We're meeting in front of the hotel.
Listen: Wir treffen uns vor dem Hotel.
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Wir treffen uns vor dem Hotel uses vor with the dative for a location, and treffen is reflexive here, which is why uns appears. Hotel is a borrowing stressed on its second syllable, so the sentence ends with the beat further back than a German noun would normally place it.
Where English speakers slip
The letter v drags English readers toward a buzzing v, and the meaning overlap with English for makes it worse — the two words look and sound similar but mean different things, since German vor means in front of or before. Start with f, hold the o long, and let the r fade into a vowel rather than curling for it.