Pronouncing “sp” and “ st ” in German Part 1: the rules

1. Pronouncing “sp” and “st” in German Part 1: the rules

2. Pause or go back/forward  Feel free to pause this recording at any time or go back to any point of the recording. Simply use the following “Screen-O-Matic” buttons: Press button to pause Sliding bar to go forward or backward in the recording Press button to start

3. When the German “sp” or “st” come at the beginning of a word they are pronounced “shp” or “sht”. Sport Stadt

4. When the “sp” or “st” occur in the middle or at the end of a word they are pronounced like the English “sp” or “st” as in “crisp” or “list”. Wespe Liste

5. However, if words beginning with sp or st are used in compound nouns, they are still pronounced as they would be at the start of the word: Sport Profisport Stadt Hauptstadt

6. This is also the case when: • adding a prefix to verbs starting with sp orst: stehen verstehen • making a past participle from verbs starting with sp orst: gestunken stinken

7. So remember the rules:

8. DankefürsZuhören! All images are taken from http://pixabay.com