LingoDrop
German · Pronunciation Guide
How do you pronounce "zu" in German?
TSOO. The z is a 'ts' as in cats and the u is a long, firmly rounded 'oo'.
Two jobs, two stress behaviours. Meaning 'to', it is a weak preposition that gives its beat away and fuses with articles into zum and zur. Meaning 'too' before an adjective, it is a degree word and takes real emphasis — zu TEUER can even shift so that the zu itself is stressed when you want to underline that something is beyond your limit.
Listen: zu
Free browser voice. Hear it read by a real native speaker inside the LingoDrop app.
Sound it out
Hear it in a sentence
Das ist zu teuer für mich.
That's too expensive for me.
Listen: Das ist zu teuer für mich.
Free browser voice. Hear it read by a real native speaker inside the LingoDrop app.
Das ist zu teuer für mich uses the 'too' sense, so this zu is doing intensifying work rather than pointing anywhere. Teuer contains the eu diphthong and the vocalised r, landing as 'TOY-uh', and für ends the phrase with the long front-rounded ü that so often trips learners up.
Where English speakers slip
The letter z pulls English speakers straight to 'zoo', which is doubly awkward because German Zoo exists and is pronounced 'tsoh'. Lead with the t. There is also a meaning trap running alongside the sound one: German zu covers both English to and too, so hearing it correctly matters as much as saying it.