German · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "wirklich" in German?

Q: How do you pronounce wirklich in German?

wirklich is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /ˈvɪʁk.lɪç/. It means “really.” VIRK-likh. The w is a v, the r darkens the i behind it, and -lich ends in the soft hiss.

VIRK-likh. The w is a v, the r darkens the i behind it, and -lich ends in the soft hiss.

wirklich /ˈvɪʁk.lɪç/

WIRK- takes the beat and -lich takes none, exactly as in glücklich and möglich. Once you can hear the suffix as a single unstressed unit, a large family of German adjectives becomes rhythmically predictable — the beat is always on whatever comes before it.

Listen: wirklich

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Sound it out

w The v of vine, not the w of wine.

ir A short i with the uvular r behind it. Before a consonant the r colours the vowel rather than sounding separately.

k A crisp k closing the stressed syllable.

lich The unstressed adjective suffix, ending in the soft ich-laut.

Hear it in a sentence

Das ist wirklich schön.

That's really nice.

Listen: Das ist wirklich schön.

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Das ist wirklich schön ends on schön, whose long front-rounded ö is one of the hardest vowels in the language. Coming straight after the palatal hiss of -lich, it makes the last two syllables of the sentence a genuine workout for the front of the mouth.

Where English speakers slip

The ir sequence pulls English speakers toward the vowel of shirk or work, which is a central vowel with the r baked into it. German has a distinct short i first, and the r arrives afterwards as a back-of-throat darkening. Keep them separable in your mind, and finish the word with a hiss rather than a k.