How to pronounce Goethe correctly?

None of these is quite right. The actual spelling in German is Gothe, but with an umlaut over the o. An umlaut is two dots above a vowel, which can’t be printed easily, so ‘oe’ is used as a transliteration. The pronunciation is done by shaping the mouth as if to say ‘oh’, but then saying ‘eh’ instead. Also, ‘th’ is pronounced like ‘t’. The end result is something like ‘gerte’, but not quite. The ‘r’ is not really pronounced, and the final ‘e’ is just barely pronounced.

How To Pronounce Goethe

Goethe Pronunciation

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RE:
How to pronounce Goethe correctly?

gurh tah

‘Tis pronounced ‘GO-tay’ (‘GO’ rhymes with ‘BOW’, ‘SLOW’, and ‘tay’ with ‘lay’, ‘may’).

The surname of the German polymath, Goethe, is derived from ancient Sumer.

Hence, the silly pronunciations which we encounter online should immediately be discarded.

Quite simply, the ‘goe’ part is pronounced similarly to ‘toe’ or ‘foe’ in English, and ‘the’ is pronounced even as ‘rhe’ would be.

In ‘rhe’ (e.g. Rhesus, rhetoric), the ‘h’ is silent — we can infer the same for the ‘t’ in Goe’the’. The ‘t’, not the ‘th’, is spoken.

The final disparity, then, is the last vowel. It seems to me that either ‘ee’ or ‘ay’ is acceptable.

Albert Einstein pronounces Goethe’s name as ‘GOO-tay’ (speech on Youtube).

Hence, my preference of ‘GO-tay’ as the most accurate pronunciation.

Goethe is pronounced ger-ta.

“Ger’ ta” rhymes with serta (as in Serta perfect sleeper); this is a simplification as it is a proper name, and thus is subject to variation, but it suffices polite society. (You won’t sound stupid pronouncing it this way!)

It’s a German name, and there’s an “umlaut” over the first ‘e’, which you can’t even type in English, let alone pronounce. It almost but not quite has an ‘r’ sound in it. As close as I can describe it, make the ‘r’ sound while trying to swallow.

‘th’ isn’t pronounced like ‘th’ in English, the two letters each have their own sound, yet are not in separate syllables.

As close as you’ll get without practicing saying it after a native German speaker is “Gerta”.

It pretty much sounds like this: ger-thuh.