German · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "die Zeit" in German?

Q: How do you pronounce die Zeit in German?

die Zeit is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /diː tsaɪ̯t/. It means “time.” dee TSITE. The z is 'ts' and ei is 'eye', so the noun rhymes with English sight.

dee TSITE. The z is 'ts' and ei is 'eye', so the noun rhymes with English sight.

die Zeit /diː tsaɪ̯t/

The noun carries the beat with the article light ahead of it. This root turns up inside a great many compounds — Zeitung, Freizeit, rechtzeitig — and in every one it keeps its long diphthong, though the compound's stress may sit elsewhere depending on which element leads.

Listen: die Zeit

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Sound it out

Z 'ts', as in every German word. Never the buzz of English zoo.

ei The 'eye' glide: it starts open and rises toward 'ee' without ever settling there.

t Fully pronounced and released — no soft landing on this consonant.

Hear it in a sentence

Ich habe keine Zeit.

I don't have time.

Listen: Ich habe keine Zeit.

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Ich habe keine Zeit negates the noun with keine rather than using a separate word for not, which is what German does whenever the thing being denied is a noun. Zeit is uncountable here, so no plural is possible and the sentence means 'I have no time at all'.

Where English speakers slip

Reading z as an English z gives 'zite', and reading ei as 'ee' gives 'tseet'. Both are common, and together they produce something unrecognisable. Lead with the t, then the s, then the diphthong of eye. The word is worth drilling because Zeit appears constantly and its two traps are the two most frequent in German spelling.