colors

meals

the house

the outdoors

media

clothing

beauty

necessities

>>

DUTCH PRONUNCIATION AND SPELLING

First Spelling Words at School

Traditional aap noot Mies Wim zus Jet - 2 Teun vuur Gijs lam Kees bok weide Does hok duif schapen - 2 aap noot Mies Wim zus Jet Teun vuur Gijs lam Kees bok weide Does hok duif schapen hear

Modern ik maan roos vis sok pen teen buik neus oog aap doos poes eet hear koek ijs zeep huis hek weg bos tak hut reus jas riem bijl hout vuur geit uil pauw duif ei hear

Hear the Dutchman say his alphabet A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Dutch Vowel Sounds Compared - NEW: Dutch Consonants Review

Everyday Dutch Words Basic vocabulary for conversation and reading
Useful Words and Phrases for Travelers
Learning Dutch? (Lessons - Suggested Method)
Hear Longer Dutch Texts: Poems and a Song - Short Stories

• Dutch spelling is fairly phonetic and usually provides a reliable guide to pronunciation, but there are a few exceptions.
• Unlisted letters are pronounced like in English.
• Double vowels indicate a long vowel, but single vowels can be either short or long (explained.)
• Double consonants only indicate that a preceding single vowel is pronounced short, the consonants are not pronounced double or long (if possible.)
• AÄ, EË, EÏ, EÜ, IË, OË, UÏ, UÜ - see below

NEW: Problems in Dutch Spelling and Pronunciation

Two dots on top of a vowel indicate that the vowel is pronounced separately from the preceding vowel(s), not forming a long vowel or a diphtong. In Dutch, it's called trema; it may look somewhat similar to the German Umlaut, but its meaning is completely different.

Names and Old Spelling

Note that double consonants are usually pronounced as single, not longer or with a pause in between:
Van Poll, Verhoeff, De Witt, Wolff

Occasionally, a name is said in way that diverges from standard pronunciation, for instance:
Bruegel, Baron Van Lynden
Dutchmen will attempt to pronounce foreign names as in the original language:
Brüggen, Lumey, Zimmerman

More Dutch names: Vermeer's World - Rembrandt - 17th Century Sailors and Ships - Old New York - Names by Request

Names Corrupted
I was asked about 'Fami(t)cha,' the first name of a Dutch greatⁿ-grandmother who came to America around 1700. It didn't look Dutch to me, but after some reflection and looking through Van der Schaar (the Dutch Dictionary of First Names) I think it's most likely: Femmetje as written down phonetically by an English clerk.
Try it for yourself: how would you write it down as you hear it?
That clerk didn't do a bad job: when you say 'Famicha' as if it were an English name, doesn't it come out like I say 'Femmetje'?

Search for your Dutch relations in The Netherlands Phone Directory. It's all in Dutch. Click 'uitgebreid zoeken' below bold 'Zoek' ('search') for a countrywide search, choose the default 'Of heel Nederland'.
Other websites listing Dutch last (and first) names are het Meertens Instituut: English version - Dutch version, based on the 1947 census, and BeSite (working with the Linguistics Department of Leuven (Louvain) University, Belgium), based on the 1993 phone directory. Both sites have nice maps showing the names' distribution over the country.
Hear The Dutch Family

LONG AND SHORT VOWELS

OPEN SYLLABLE: ends in vowel: Ko ko-len - la la-de - zo zo-mer

CLOSED SYLLABLE: ends in consonant: stal stal-len - vonk von-ken - terp ter-pen

Consonants within a word:

• a single consonant begins the following syllable :
  sla-pen la-kens de-kens - kra-ken dra-len
• two consonants are usually divided between the preceding and the following syllalble:
  bed-den dek-bed kus-sen rus-ten - kran-ten stal-len

SHORT VOWELS are always represented by a single letter and appear only in closed syllables; in other words, short vowels will be followed either by two consonants, or by one consonant at the end of a word.
man, mannen (man-nen) - pet, petten - ton, tonnen - buk, bukken
(Compare with 'Silent E' in English, which has a similar function indicating long vowels: dam/dame, twin/twine, glob/globe, hug/huge.)

EXCEPTION: E at the end of a word is prononounced like voiceless E (A in AGO): de, lede, weelde, welde

The mysteries of single and double vowels and consonants explained. (version 2.)

Again, double consonants only indicate that a preceding single vowel is pronounced short, the consonants are not held longer or pronounced double with a pause:
heten heetten laden laadden

Miscellaneous

Diphtongs are always long: au, ou, ei, ij, ie, ui, eu, (uw)

Teaching Dutch like in these pages, I've come to understand the problem of the voiceless E for foreign students.
"Ben je helemaal geschuffeld!" (Bèn juh héluhmàl guh-schuhf-fuhld.)
A general rule is that single E's that don't have the stress of the word are voiceless - but there are no easy rules for the stress in the word. Longer Treatment
You could say that stress is usually on the first syllable, unless it's a prefix (be-, ge-, her-, ont-)
vervelen vervellen wervelen (stress rule, and wer- is not a prefix)
leraar leraren lerares (stress rule)

EXERCISES: Pronunciation - NEW: Listening
- test what you've learned on this page

Dutch Vowel Sounds Compared - NEW: Dutch Consonants Review

Everyday Dutch Words Basic vocabulary for conversation and reading
Useful Words and Phrases for Travelers
Learning Dutch? (Lessons - Suggested Method)

Another Take on Spelling
Some Famous Names and Words Upon Request
Vermeer's World - Rembrandt - 17th Century Sailors and Ships - Old New York
Hebrew words in Dutch - NEW: Dutch Names and Words from Anne Frank's Diary

Brought to you by Marco Schuffelen - Questions? Comments?
copyright © 1999-2006 Marco Schuffelen - All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Don't be a dief (thief) - dievegge (female thief) - diefstal (theft) - stelen (to steal) - heler (dealer in stolen goods) - hear Dutch - 2