German · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "die Nacht" in German?

dee NAKHT. A short a and then the throaty ach-laut before a crisp t.

die Nacht /diː naxt/

The noun carries the beat. Its plural, Nächte, does something worth hearing: fronting the vowel to ä also changes the ch to the soft ich-laut, because the rule keys off the vowel rather than the spelling. So the singular scrapes at the back and the plural hisses at the front.

Listen: die Nacht

Free browser voice. Hear it read by a real native speaker inside the LingoDrop app.

Sound it out

N A clean n with the tongue touching just behind the teeth.

a Short and open, kept short by the consonants stacked behind it.

ch The ach-laut, made at the soft palate because the vowel in front is a back a.

t Released straight after the friction, with no vowel between.

Hear it in a sentence

Gute Nacht!

Good night!

Listen: Gute Nacht!

Free browser voice. Hear it read by a real native speaker inside the LingoDrop app.

Gute Nacht! keeps an -e on the adjective, a leftover from the fuller phrase 'I wish you a good night' where the noun was accusative. The greeting is a set piece, and the adjective ending is not optional — dropping it to gut Nacht would sound broken rather than casual.

Where English speakers slip

Substituting a k gives 'nakt', which is a different German word entirely — nackt means naked. Keep the air flowing. Then remember the plural: Nächte takes the soft ch, and learners who fix the singular's throaty sound often carry it into the plural where it no longer belongs.