LingoDrop
German · Pronunciation Guide
How do you pronounce "wer" in German?
VAIR, or 'VAY-uh'. The w is a v, the e is long, and the r melts into a vowel.
It opens its question and takes the main stress there. This word also declines like an article — wen in the accusative, wem in the dative, wessen in the genitive — and every one of those forms keeps the same long stressed vowel with the ending unstressed behind it.
Listen: wer
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Hear it in a sentence
Wer ist das?
Who is that?
Listen: Wer ist das?
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Wer ist das? uses das as a demonstrative pronoun rather than an article, which is why it stands alone at the end. There is a small glottal catch before ist, and the whole question is three short words with a falling contour — German does not raise its pitch on a question that begins with a question word.
Where English speakers slip
This is a false friend in the most dangerous way: it looks like English where but means who. German where is wo. Getting that straight matters more than the pronunciation, though the pronunciation needs work too — a v at the front and a vowel rather than a consonant at the end.