nee vs nei, What's the Difference?

Which to use

“nee” is a particle and “nei” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#3,609
“nee” frequency rank: #38,309
“nei” frequency rank: 41918
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	nee	nei
Definition	nein	verneinen, negieren, abstreiten

Letter map: nee vs nei

Shared letters muted; letters that set nee and nei apart highlighted. Shared run: 2. nee and nei follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

3 ch

nee

3 ch

nei

Part-of-speech tell for nee / nei

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: nee is aparticle and neiaverb. On the page they differ by a single letter - e in “nee” becomes i in “nei”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 41918, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

nee is recorded at frequency rank #3,609, classified as aparticle, pronounced [neː]. nei is at rank #38,309, tagged as averb, pronounced […].

Glosses for this pair are partially populated in our dataset, but the full side-by-side definitions above should still guide you to the right choice.

With a confusion score of 41918, this pair ranks #1,465,135 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of nee vs nei

Shared letters: en. Private to "nee": -. Private to "nei": i.

"nee" · 3 letters · shape CVV · "nei" · 3 letters · shape CVV

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "nee" for "nei" ever safe?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "nee" is a particle and "nei" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

In ordinary German text, does "nee" or "nei" show up more?

"nee" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #3,609 in our German list, against #38,309 for "nei". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "nee" and "nei".

Full dictionary entry for "nee" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "nei" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #1,465,135 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"nee" and "nei" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "nei vs puzzles". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #1,465,135 of 2,006,359 scored German pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.