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German · Pronunciation Guide
How do you pronounce "wir" in German?
VEER, or more exactly 'VEE-uh'. The w is a v, the i is long, and the r dissolves into a vowel.
Like all subject pronouns it is normally unstressed, but it never reduces its vowel — German keeps the long 'ee' even at speed, where English would flatten a comparable word to almost nothing. That full vowel in an unstressed slot is a large part of what gives German its evenly weighted rhythm.
Listen: wir
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Hear it in a sentence
Wir gehen ins Kino.
We're going to the cinema.
Listen: Wir gehen ins Kino.
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Wir gehen ins Kino uses ins, the compulsory contraction of in and das, and the accusative case marks motion into the cinema rather than being inside it. Kino takes a long i in its stressed first syllable, so the sentence contains three long 'ee' sounds in a row if you count wir and the first vowel of Kino.
Where English speakers slip
Starting with an English w gives 'weer', which is the reflex to break first. After that, watch the vowel: wir means we and wer means who, and they differ only in that one sound, so an imprecise vowel can turn a statement into a question word. The r at the end is the third piece — no curling, just a soft vowel fade.