German · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "nein" in German?

Q: How do you pronounce nein in German?

nein is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /naɪ̯n/. It means “no.” Rhymes with English nine. The whole trick is remembering that the letters e-i say 'eye' here, not 'ee'.

Rhymes with English nine. The whole trick is remembering that the letters e-i say 'eye' here, not 'ee'.

nein /naɪ̯n/

One syllable whose whole job is emphasis, so it is normally said with force and a falling pitch. Germans often draw the diphthong out for weight — a long, sinking naiiin is a far stronger no than a clipped one, and it is vowel length rather than volume that does the work.

Listen: nein

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Sound it out

n An ordinary n, tongue tip on the ridge behind the top teeth.

ei Always the diphthong of my and eye. A memory hook that works every time: in German the SECOND letter of ei or ie tells you the sound — ei says the English name of the letter i, ie says 'ee'.

n The closing n is fully pronounced and a touch longer than an English one, since nothing follows to blur it.

Hear it in a sentence

Nein, danke.

No, thank you.

Listen: Nein, danke.

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Nein, danke is the standard polite refusal, and that comma is real: there is a genuine pause between the two words, with a fresh falling contour on danke. Running them together into a single 'nein-danke' sounds curt, almost dismissive.

Where English speakers slip

Spelling habits from English words like receive and ceiling push learners toward 'neen', which is the single most common misreading of German ei. It is always 'eye'. The error compounds because German has a separate word spelled nie, pronounced 'nee' and meaning never — so the wrong vowel drags you into different vocabulary altogether.