German · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "kein" in German?

Q: How do you pronounce kein in German?

kein is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /kaɪ̯n/. It means “no / not any.” KINE, rhyming with mine. It is simply ein with a k stuck on the front.

KINE, rhyming with mine. It is simply ein with a k stuck on the front.

kein /kaɪ̯n/

The interesting question is not where the stress goes but when the word gets any. In ordinary statements it rides along with the noun, but because it is doing the negating, speakers often lean on it for contradiction: ich habe KEIN Geld, said with weight here, insists on the absence rather than merely reporting it.

Listen: kein

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Sound it out

k A k with a small puff of air after it, much as in English kite.

ei 'Eye', as in the English word ice. This value is fixed for ei everywhere in German.

n A clean closing n, air passing through the nose.

Hear it in a sentence

Ich habe kein Geld.

I have no money.

Listen: Ich habe kein Geld.

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Ich habe kein Geld demonstrates something German does that English cannot: nouns are negated with kein rather than with a separate word for not. English needs 'I do not have any money', German fuses the negation into the article. Geld ends in a devoiced d, so it sounds like 'gelt'.

Where English speakers slip

The vowel is the sound problem — 'keen' instead of 'kine' — but the grammatical habit does more damage. Learners build negations with nicht ein, which is not idiomatic German; the two words have already merged into kein and stayed merged. Fix the diphthong once and it carries across kein, mein, dein and sein, which all rhyme.