LingoDrop
German · Pronunciation Guide
How do you pronounce "nie" in German?
NEE, rhyming with English knee. The ie is a single long 'ee'.
Because the word is doing the work of negation it usually takes real emphasis, with a falling pitch across the long vowel. German often strengthens it further to niemals, adding a second stressed element for weight — much as English can escalate from never to never ever.
Listen: nie
Free browser voice. Hear it read by a real native speaker inside the LingoDrop app.
Sound it out
Hear it in a sentence
Ich war noch nie in Rom.
I've never been to Rome.
Listen: Ich war noch nie in Rom.
Free browser voice. Hear it read by a real native speaker inside the LingoDrop app.
Ich war noch nie in Rom pairs noch with nie, a combination that means 'never yet' and has no single English equivalent. War is the past tense of sein, and Rom takes a long o after its uvular r — the German name for the city keeps the vowel long where English shortens it.
Where English speakers slip
Reading ie as a diphthong gives 'nye', which is the recurring German vowel error working in the opposite direction from usual. It is a long 'ee'. Keeping nie and nein distinct matters too, since one means never and the other no — they differ in both the vowel and the final consonant, so neither can be blurred.