German · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "nichts" in German?

Q: How do you pronounce nichts in German?

nichts is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /nɪçts/. It means “nothing.” NIKHTS. The soft ich-laut followed straight by 'ts' — four consonant sounds packed around one short vowel.

NIKHTS. The soft ich-laut followed straight by 'ts' — four consonant sounds packed around one short vowel.

nichts /nɪçts/

The consonant load at the end means the word never quite fades, even when it goes unstressed. Its shape is a genitive fossil — the -s is an old case ending that has stuck — which is why the word looks like a plural but takes a singular verb.

Listen: nichts

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

Sound it out

n The n of no, identical to the English consonant.

i The short, lax i of sit — never the long 'ee' of see.

ch The soft ich-laut, chosen by the front vowel in front of it.

ts The final s attaches to the t, giving the same 'ts' German writes as z elsewhere. No vowel breaks up the sequence.

Hear it in a sentence

Ich habe nichts gesagt.

I didn't say anything.

Listen: Ich habe nichts gesagt.

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

Ich habe nichts gesagt is in the perfect tense, and gesagt is a compact devoicing lesson: the ge- prefix is unstressed, the s buzzes like z, and the g hardens to k before the final t, giving 'guh-ZAHKT'. The participle closes the sentence in its usual final slot.

Where English speakers slip

The pair nicht and nichts is the practical difficulty: one means not and one means nothing, and they differ by a single hissed s at the end. Blurring that s makes the difference vanish. On top of that, learners replace the ch with a k and produce 'nikts', which loses the soft palatal hiss the word depends on.