German · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "zwei" in German?

Q: How do you pronounce zwei in German?

zwei is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /tsvaɪ̯/. It means “two.” TSVY. The z is a 'ts' as in cats, the w is a v, and ei is 'eye' — three spelling traps packed into four letters.

TSVY. The z is a 'ts' as in cats, the w is a v, and ei is 'eye' — three spelling traps packed into four letters.

zwei /tsvaɪ̯/

One syllable carrying full stress. On the phone or over a bad line Germans swap in zwo, precisely because zwei and drei blur at a distance — a neat demonstration of how completely the stressed diphthong dominates this word.

Listen: zwei

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Sound it out

z Always 'ts', the sound ending English cats or opening pizza's second half. Never the buzzing z of zoo, in any position in any German word.

w English v — top teeth on the bottom lip. German w never sounds like an English w.

ei The 'eye' diphthong of mine — ei always says 'eye', never 'ee'.

Hear it in a sentence

Ich habe zwei Brüder.

I have two brothers.

Listen: Ich habe zwei Brüder.

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Ich habe zwei Brüder shows a plural made by umlaut alone: Bruder becomes Brüder, with the vowel itself changing and no ending added. Any number above one takes a plural noun, and zwei never picks up an ending of its own.

Where English speakers slip

Starting a word with 'ts' feels impossible to English speakers, because English allows that cluster only at the end of words. The workaround is to say cats, then 'cats-vy', then gradually drop the 'ca'. What you must not do is simplify it to a plain z or s — 'zvy' and 'svy' are both wrong, and the ts stays audible even at full speed.