der Vater

Der Vater (the father) is masculine and takes der as its article. The plural is die Väter, formed with an umlaut and no added ending, exactly like Mutter and Mütter. German family words follow this pattern often enough that it is worth learning as a group.

As with Mutter, the full word is not what families use at home. Papa and Vati are the normal forms of address, similar to "dad" and "daddy". Vater sounds formal or descriptive: you would say mein Vater arbeitet in Hamburg (my father works in Hamburg) but call out Papa! across the room.

The word builds several useful compounds. Der Großvater is the grandfather, der Schwiegervater is the father-in-law, and der Stiefvater is the stepfather. Die Vaterschaft means paternity, and the adjective väterlich means fatherly. Das Vaterland means homeland, though it carries historical weight in German and appears far less often in everyday speech than die Heimat.

Genitive forms show up in set phrases: das Haus des Vaters (the father's house). In the dative you sometimes still see the older ending in fixed expressions, but modern German simply uses dem Vater.

Pronunciation: Vater is [ˈfaːtɐ], two syllables with the stress on the first. The v sounds like an English "f", which surprises most beginners, and the a is long. In the plural Väter, the vowel changes to ä, pronounced like the "e" in English "bed" but held longer.