Dutch pronunciation guide for English speakers
How to pronounce Dutch g, sch, ui, ij, eu, long and short vowels, final consonants and stress, with honest English comparisons and tips.
Dutch spelling is far more regular than English spelling. Once you know how a letter combination sounds, you can usually read any word aloud correctly. The tricky part is that a few of those sounds don't exist in English at all. This guide gives you the closest English comparison where there is one, and tells you honestly where there isn't.
One note before we start: Dutch is spoken with many regional accents in the Netherlands and Belgium. The descriptions below are for standard Dutch as you'll commonly hear it in the Netherlands.
The famous g and ch
In most of the Netherlands, g and ch sound the same: a rasping sound made at the back of the mouth, like the ch in Scottish loch or German Bach. English has no equivalent in everyday words.
- goed — good
- Groningen — the city of Groningen
- lachen — to laugh
- acht — eight
In the north the sound is harsh and scraping. In the south (Brabant, Limburg) and in Flanders you'll hear a softer, "soft g". Both are correct. A g in French or English loanwords often keeps its original sound: garage has a French "zh", and goal is said as in English.
sch is simply s followed by that ch sound: school is "s-chool", never "skool" or "shool". Scheveningen is the famous test word.
At the end of a word, -isch is pronounced like "-ies": in logisch (logical) and praktisch (practical) you don't hear the ch at all.
Long and short vowels
Dutch has pairs of long and short vowels, and the difference changes the meaning: man (man) vs maan (moon), bot (bone) vs boot (boat).
| Spelling | Sound | Rough English comparison | Example |
|---|---|---|---|
| a (short) | short, back | like a short o in American "hot" | man, kat |
| aa (long) | long, open | like a in "father" | maan, straat |
| e (short) | short | like e in "bed" | bed, ben |
| ee (long) | long | like ay in "day", without the glide | been, twee |
| i (short) | short | like i in "bit" | wit, dik |
| o (short) | short | like o in British "hot" | bot, pot |
| oo (long) | long | like oa in "boat", without the glide | boot, rood |
| u (short) | short | no real equivalent; a short, rounded "uh" | bus, dun |
| uu (long) | long | no English equivalent; say "ee" with rounded lips | muur, duur |
English speakers tend to add a little "w" or "y" glide at the end of long vowels: "boh-w-t" instead of a pure boot. Try to keep the vowel steady from start to finish.
The spelling rule that saves you
A single vowel at the end of a syllable is long. That's why maan (moon) becomes manen (moons), split as ma-nen, while man becomes mannen, with a double consonant to keep the a short. If you see a single vowel followed by a single consonant and another vowel, read it long: maken (ma-ken), bomen (bo-men), komen (ko-men).
The other vowel sounds
oe — like oo in "food", but shorter: boek (book), goed (good), zoet (sweet).
ie — like ee in "see", but shorter: niet (not), fiets (bike), drie (three). Before an r it gets longer: bier (beer).
ij and ei — these two spellings make exactly the same sound: mijn (my) and klein (small) rhyme. It sits somewhere between ay in "say" and i in "line". You'll hear Dutch speakers range across that whole space, and many say it quite close to "eye". When spelling a word aloud, Dutch people call them lange ij (long ij) and korte ei (short ei), but that's about the letters, not the sound.
au and ou — again, two spellings, one sound, roughly like ow in "how" but with rounder lips: blauw (blue), koud (cold), oud (old).
eu — no English equivalent. It's close to the vowel in French peu or German schön. Say "ay" and round your lips as if you're about to whistle: neus (nose), deur (door), leuk (nice, fun).
ui — the sound every learner struggles with, and honestly, nothing in English matches it. A workable approach: start from the ow in "house", push your tongue forward and round your lips. It should sound brighter and more "squeezed" than the English ow. Practise with huis (house), uit (out) and buiten (outside), and listen a lot.
Consonants that behave differently
Final devoicing. At the end of a word, d sounds like t and b sounds like p. Hond (dog) sounds like "hont", heb (have) like "hep", rood (red) like "root". In the plural, the d comes back: honden has a real d.
The r. Dutch has several accepted ways to say r: a rolled or tapped r at the front of the mouth, a French-style r at the back of the throat, and, at the end of a syllable, a softer sound that is surprisingly close to the English r, as in meer (lake) or maar (but). Pick the one that comes easiest; all of them are standard.
w — not the English w. In the Netherlands, your lower lip lightly touches your upper teeth, as if starting a v, but without any friction: wat (what), water, werk (work). In Flanders it's closer to an English w.
v and z — at the start of a word, many speakers in the Netherlands pronounce v close to f and z close to s: vis (fish) can sound almost like "fis". You'll be understood either way.
j — always like English y: ja (yes), jij (you).
Weak endings and stress
Endings you don't fully pronounce
The ending -en is everywhere in Dutch: plurals, infinitives, we/jullie/ze verb forms. In everyday standard speech in the Netherlands, the final n is usually dropped, and -en sounds like a weak "-uh": lopen (to walk) sounds like "loh-puh", and maken (to make) like "mah-kuh". In some regions, especially the north-east, you will hear the n clearly.
Unstressed e is almost always that weak "uh" (a schwa): de, je, ze. The same goes for unstressed -ig and -lijk: gezellig (cosy) ends in "-ugh", and mogelijk (possible) sounds like "moh-guh-luk".
Where the stress goes
- Most Dutch words stress the first syllable: KAmer (room), WInkel (shop), VAder (father).
- The prefixes be-, ge-, ver-, ont-, her- and er- are almost never stressed: beTAlen (to pay), geZICHT (face), verGEten (to forget).
- Many loanwords from French keep stress at the end: universiTEIT, staTION, caDEAU (present).
- Separable verbs stress the prefix: OPbellen, UITgaan. See our post on separable verbs.
Sometimes stress changes the meaning: VOORkomen means "to occur", while voorKOMen means "to prevent".
Quick summary
- g and ch are the same throaty sound, like Scottish loch; sch is s + that sound.
- Double vowels are long, single vowels are short, unless they end a syllable (ma-ken).
- ij = ei, au = ou. Eu and ui have no English equivalent; listen and imitate.
- Final d sounds like t, final b like p.
- -en is usually pronounced "-uh" in the Netherlands.
- The Dutch w is softer than English w, with the lip touching the teeth.
- Stress usually falls on the first syllable, almost never on be-, ge-, ver-, ont-, her-, er-.
Practise it
Listen and repeat in Greetings, where goedemorgen gives you plenty of g practice, then try the vowels in Numbers (twee, drie, negen, tien) and introduce yourself in Introducing yourself.