# The Pronunciation of "Das Boot"

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-pronunciation-of-das-boot/357622>\
**Category:** Cafe Society\
**Created:** [May 21, 2006, 9:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-pronunciation-of-das-boot/357622 "2006-05-21T09:23:20Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![kellner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/c2a13f/32.png) [@kellner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kellner)\
**Post date:** [May 24, 2006, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-pronunciation-of-das-boot/357622/21 "2006-05-24T17:14:12Z")

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[QUOTE=Giles]  
“Die Werke”, yes, but isn’t “Werke” plural, so that gender no longer matters in German?  
[/QUOTE]  
Yup, it’s the plural of _das Werk_ (neutral) but it means “works”,“plants” or “factories.” It’s hard to explain but usually you don’t use that when you assign a gender to the car as opposed to the company.  
Car brands/models are almost always masculine. There are only a few exceptions for names that would be feminine in other contexts (e.g. _Corvette_) or compounds with a neutral head word (e.g. _-mobil_) but even those aren’t consistent. For example in Germany _Mercedes_ as name is very obscure compared to the brand and thus the car is always masculine.

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**Author:** ![Baldrick\_the\_Magnificent](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/54ee81/32.png) [@Baldrick\_the\_Magnificent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baldrick_the_Magnificent)\
**Post date:** [April 29, 2014, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-pronunciation-of-das-boot/357622/22 "2014-04-29T17:21:29Z")

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> [@Gatopescado](#):
>
> I named my large, grey german super-cruiser “Das BMW”. A german-speaker told me it should have been “Der”. I’ll name the next one that.

You don’t say whether your “super-cruiser” is a car or motorcycle. Here’s some trivia; I have read that according to people who work for BMW, “Beemer” refers to a motorcycle, while “Bimmer” refers to a car. I think I read it on the internet, so it must be true…

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**Author:** ![obfusciatrist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/4af34b/32.png) [@obfusciatrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/obfusciatrist)\
**Post date:** [April 29, 2014, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-pronunciation-of-das-boot/357622/23 "2014-04-29T17:29:49Z")

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I was about to comment that Ebert has recent good excuses for the mangling the pronunciation of pretty much everything.

Then I realized the thread’s a zombie. Then I realized that we should hold zombie Ebert to a high standard of pronunciation.

So: Yeah, screw Ebert.

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**Author:** ![racepug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f1d935/32.png) [@racepug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/racepug)\
**Post date:** [April 29, 2014, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-pronunciation-of-das-boot/357622/24 "2014-04-29T17:30:02Z")

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I guess it depends on where you’re from and how willing you are to are to try to pronounce things in their native tongue. My understanding is that “Boot” in German is pronounced more or less like its translated word in English is. One thing I don’t get about German, though, is why there are so many ways to say “the.” In that regard English is SO much easier for people for whom it is not their native language (on the other hand English has issues with spelling and phonetics so…give and take).

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