German · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "bitte" in German?

Q: How do you pronounce bitte in German?

bitte is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /ˈbɪ.tə/. It means “please / you're welcome.” BIT-uh, with the short vowel of English bit and a soft schwa at the end. The double t is the spelling's way of telling you the i stays short.

BIT-uh, with the short vowel of English bit and a soft schwa at the end. The double t is the spelling's way of telling you the i stays short.

bitte /ˈbɪ.tə/

Say BIT-te with the punch up front, BIT-te, with the second reduced almost to nothing. Because this one word does duty as please, you're welcome, here you go and pardon?, intonation carries most of the meaning: level and short for please, rising and drawn out for 'sorry, what?'

Listen: bitte

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Sound it out

b A plain b, slightly less breathy than in English.

i The lax vowel of sit. The doubled consonant after it is German orthography announcing a short vowel — compare bitte with bieten, where ie makes it long.

tt Written double, said once: a single clean t. The doubling exists to mark the vowel, not to stretch the consonant.

e Unstressed schwa, the vowel in the second syllable of butter. Quiet, but always present.

Hear it in a sentence

Einen Kaffee, bitte.

A coffee, please.

Listen: Einen Kaffee, bitte.

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Einen Kaffee, bitte parks the please at the end after a comma, which is where it most often sits in a request. Einen is the masculine accusative article — coffee is der Kaffee, and ordering it makes it the object. Kaffee itself takes first-syllable stress in Germany, KA-ffee, unlike the French-style ka-FEE common in Austria.

Where English speakers slip

The instinct is 'BEE-tuh', stretching the i because English readers lengthen a vowel when they see one letter of it. German does the opposite: two consonants after a vowel mean the vowel is short, so it is the i of bit. Learners then overcorrect at the other end and drop the final e completely, leaving 'bit' — the schwa is quiet but never absent.