German · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "überrascht" in German?

Q: How do you pronounce überrascht in German?

überrascht is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /yːbɐˈʁaʃt/. It means “surprised.” ue-buh-RASHT. The beat is on the last syllable, and the ü at the front is long and front-rounded.

ue-buh-RASHT. The beat is on the last syllable, and the ü at the front is long and front-rounded.

überrascht /yːbɐˈʁaʃt/

The last syllable takes the beat, because über- functions here as an inseparable unstressed prefix. That also explains the participle's shape: there is no ge- in front, exactly as with verstanden and bezahlt, so the stress pattern and the missing prefix are two signs of the same thing.

Listen: überrascht

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Sound it out

über An unstressed prefix: a long front-rounded ü, then a softened -er reduced to a dark 'uh'. A light glottal stop precedes it.

rr The doubled r marks the seam between prefix and stem, and the stem's r is a real scraped consonant.

asch A short open a followed by sh, carrying the stress.

t Fully released, the participle ending.

Hear it in a sentence

Ich war sehr überrascht.

I was very surprised.

Listen: Ich war sehr überrascht.

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Ich war sehr überrascht uses war, the past tense of sein, rather than a perfect construction. The participle stands as a predicate adjective and takes no ending, so the sentence ends on the fully released t of the stressed final syllable.

Where English speakers slip

Learners front-load the stress onto ÜBER-, which is what the word's shape suggests and what German does not do here. Put the weight on RASCHT. The ü is the second piece: it is long and front-rounded, so substituting 'oo' loses the fronting that separates it from a plain u.