UNIT 1 – BASIC PRONUNCIATION

Even though the Dutch language uses the same alphabet as the English – with the addition of one letter, the ij (which usually comes after i and before j)* – this does not yet tell you how to pronounce these letters, as there are marked differences between the two languages. Thus, the aim of this unit is to get you to grips with the basics of standard Dutch pronunciation – please note that there are many accents (and dialects) in Dutch, and thus that pronunciation differs per region. As someone who lives right on the border between the Low Franconian and Low Saxon dialects, I can tell you the difference is palpable and quite distinct!

* one could argue there is another hidden letter: the ch, which is pronounced as one sound. However, in dictionaries both the ch and the ij are part of the c and the i, respectively: chaos comes after centrum but before circus, and ijs (ice) comes after iets (something) but before ik (I).

Regarding the pronunciation of the Dutch language, by the end of this unit you can:

• differentiate between voiceless and voiced consonants;
• differentiate between plosives (aka stops), fricatives, nasals, and approximants;
• explain and recognise the linguistic phenomena of aspiration, final devoicing, and assimilation;
• differentiate between short and long vowels;
• differentiate between diphthongs and glides;
• explain the linguistic term schwa;
• apply Dutch spelling rules to keep short vowels short and long vowels long;
• and predict word stress.

1.1 – SHORT VOWELS

Even though, spelling-wise, there are only five vowels in the Dutch alphabet (a/e/i/o/u)*, in pronunciation they can be divided into short and long vowels. Though this may seem daunting at first glance, it becomes evident whether a vowel is pronounced short or long by looking at the subsequent consonant(s), or by looking at the place of the vowel within the syllable. To make this clear, I will first tackle the short vowels.

a – pronounced like the ‘a’ in standard English (RP, Received Pronunciation) ‘father’ or ‘palm.’ For those interested, its IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) notation is /ɑ/. Examples in Dutch (English translation in brackets) are al (already), man (man), and vlam (flame). [click on audio] 

e – pronounced like the ‘e’ in RP English ‘let’ or ‘pen.’ Its IPA notation is /ɛ/. Examples are eng (scary), mens (human being), and vest (vest). [click on audio]

i – pronounced like the ‘i’ in RP English ‘bill’ or ‘sink.’ Its IPA notation is /ɪ/. Examples are inkt (ink), vis (fish), and zin (sentence). [click on audio]

o – pronounced like the ‘o’ in RP English ‘cloth’ or ‘not.’ Its IPA notation is /ɔ/. Examples are of (or), vos (fox), and zon (sun). [click on audio]

u – this sound does not exist in standard RP English; it’s like saying ‘ehm/uhm,’ but with the lips rounded. Try and practice this sound a couple of times. Standard American, GA (General American) comes closer in words such as ‘bird,’ ‘heard,’ and ‘word,’ but this American u-sound [though not spelled as one] is longer than its Dutch counterpart. Dutch shares this distinct u-sound with French, where it exists in, among others, the personal pronoun ‘je’ (meaning ‘I’). Its IPA notation is /ʏ/ or /ɵ/. (When I studied English in the late zeroes, it was still represented as /ʏ/ when we had to compare the Dutch vowel inventory to the English one.) Examples are dun (thin, skinny), nul (nil, zero), and zus (sister). [click on audio]

(* in non-native words [aka borrowed words], very occasionally the letter ‘y’ can be found, which can serve as both a consonant and a vowel.)

1.1.1 – THE POSITION OF THE SHORT VOWEL WITHIN A SYLLABLE

Crucial to the Dutch language is that a vowel is the basis of every syllable; there are no Dutch syllables without a vowel. An imperative rule for short vowels in Dutch is that they can never be in the final position of a syllable, linguistically called the ‘coda’ (so a syllable cannot end in a short vowel). This means that short vowels are only found at the beginning of a syllable (if there is/are no initial consonant(s), called the ‘onset’)* or in the middle of the syllable, called the ‘nucleus’. Conversely, if a syllable ends in just one vowel, this is consequently a long vowel, or a schwa (see 1.8).

So schematically, this leads to the following (o = onset, n = nucleus, c = coda):

* for those interested, syllables in Dutch can, at most, start with a cluster of three consonant sounds [sometimes even represented by four letters, such as ‘schr-’] and at most end in a cluster of four consonant sounds [such as -rfst].

In short, there are five short vowels in Dutch – a, e, i, o, u – that can be identified as such when:

• they are not in final position within a syllable;
• they are followed by at least one consonant within the syllable, excepting the schwa-sound (see 1.8).

OEFENING – EXERCISE

Spreek de volgende woorden uit. Pronounce the following words.

lam (lamb) – mist (fog) – vol (full) – vel (sheet of paper) – mus (sparrow)

Ga nu na of je de woorden goed hebt uitgesproken. Now check whether you’ve pronounced the words correctly.

[key]

Wist je dat? Did you know? The words ‘val,’ ‘vil,’ and ‘vul’ also exist in Dutch, and thus, together with ‘vel’ and ‘vol,’ these form an entire cluster of minimal pairs. They mean (I) fall, (I) skin, and (I) fill respectively, and are thus the first person singular forms of verbs (present tense). In fact, ‘val’ could also be the noun ‘fall’ (not the season, but falling from or off something), and ‘vel’ is also a synonym for ‘skin (of an animal)’ Actually, ‘vel’ could even be “(I) fell”, as in ‘to fell a tree’ (not the past tense of ‘to fall’) [wist-je-dat?].

Plosives are a certain set of consonants. Even though the Dutch plosives are, in sound, similar to their English counterparts, it is still vital to treat them, because everything around the sounds is different.

First, the plosives come in sets of voiced and voiceless pairs. Voiced means that your vocal chords are vibrating, as happens with every vowel. Just touch your throat whilst producing the Dutch short vowels, and you will notice your vocal chords vibrating: a – e – i – o – u. Voiceless means that your vocal chords are, quite obviously, not vibrating.

These are the pairs of plosive consonants:

p – b

t – d

k – (g)

They are called plosives (also known as stops), because either your lips (p & b), your alveolar ridge (the hard ridge just behind your front teeth, t &d), or your palate (k & g) stop(s) the sound from leaving your mouth, before they are suddenly released (note the similarity between the words ‘plosive’ and ‘explosive’ – when something explodes, there is a sudden outburst of energy). In Dutch, the p, b, t, d, and k are formed in the same part of the mouth as in English. The main difference is the g-sound, which is native to the English language, but not to Dutch (except in instances of assimilation, see 1.2.3), and in some loanwords such as ‘goal’). Most importantly, though, English aspirates its plosives and uses a short glottal stop if a words ends in a plosive (which Dutch doesn’t do), and Dutch devoices voiced plosives at the ends of words (which English doesn’t do). Allow me to explain…

1.2.1 – ASPIRATION & GLOTTAL STOP

The phenomenon of aspiration is a common feature in Germanic languages, except in Dutch. It’s the small puff of air released after a p-, t-, or k-sound if a word begins with one of those sounds – remember that in English, a k-sound can also be spelled with a ‘c’. The small puff of air would become noticeable if you were to light a candle and hold it in front of your mouth whilst pronouncing p, t, k [click for audio]. Do note that aspiration only happens if the ptk-sound is not in combination with another consonant: aspiration doesn’t happen if a word starts with sp, st, sk, for instance [click for audio].

            A glottal stop is a very small pause – so one’s breath is held – before a final voiceless (p, t, k) plosive is uttered (so when words end in a voiceless plosive consonant). Once more, this only happens if no other consonants are involved [click for audio]. The glottal stop before final plosives is something specifically found in the English language, less so in the other Germanic ones – and not at all in the Dutch language.

            This means that there is a huge difference between English and Dutch when it comes to plosives, and this also makes it really easy to identify Dutch speakers of English: they don’t aspirate, and they don’t use glottal stops. Compare the following words.

First, the English trio: pit – tip [piece of advice] – cat [click for audio].

Now, their Dutch counterparts: pit – tip – kat [click for audio].

Please note these are NOT loanwords – remember, Dutch and English are such close relatives, that they share quite a number of words. Yet, for Dutch loanwords from English, this does mean they will be pronounced in a Dutch way: no aspiration, and no glottal stops.

1.2.2 – FINAL DEVOICING

Another difference between the two languages is that Dutch makes use of final devoicing (a feature it shares with Slavic languages such as Russian, Polish, and Czech), whereas English doesn’t. What this means is that if a Dutch word ends in a voiced plosive or fricative (see 1.4 for fricatives), this voiced consonant is pronounced as its voiceless counterpart. In other words, if a Dutch word ends in b or d (remember, English g does not (really) exist in Dutch), it will be pronounced as p or t in spite of its spelling (so the spelling reflects b or d, but the pronunciation is p or t). English, however, pronounces a final b and a final d as a b and a d – so these sounds remain voiced. Similarly to aspiration and the glottal stop, the presence of final devoicing in their English is how you can easily identify a Dutch speaker of English.

Anyway, time for some English examples now: bed, web, bad [click for audio].

And here some Dutch examples – notice the difference: bed (bed), eb (low tide), bad (bath) [click for audio].

1.2.3 – ASSIMILATION

Sometimes sounds influence neighbouring words, and change the pronunciation of those neighbouring words. This is, linguistically, called assimilation. In the case of two neighbouring plosives, where the second one is voiced and the other one is voiceless, this is called regressive pronunciation: the second plosive changes the pronunciation of the first one, and turns the voiceless plosive into a voiced one.

            Remember how I mentioned the Dutch language does not know the g-sound, except in the case of assimilation? That is where the g-sound does occur. Let’s have a look at the Dutch way of saying ‘I am,’ ik ben. Individually, these words are pronounced with a k- and a b-sound: ik /ɪk/, ben /bɛn/. However, as they are neighbouring each other in the case of ik ben, the b causes the k to be pronounced as /g/ (the IPA notation for the English g is /g/): /ˌɪgˈbɛn/. Try this for yourself now [click for audio].

To round off, even though Dutch and English plosives (b, d, (g,) k, p, t) are similar in sound, remember:

• whereas English uses aspiration and glottal stops for plosives, Dutch does not;
• whereas English does not make use of final devoicing for plosives (and fricatives), Dutch does do so;
• the /g/-sound only occurs in some Dutch loanwords and in some occasions of assimilation.

OEFENINGEN – EXERCISES

1. Spreek uit. Pronounce. pad (path) – pet (cap) – pit (pit) – pot (pot) – put (pit, well [manmade hole in the ground from which water can be extracted]).
2. Herhaal de woorden nu met de geluidsopname. Now repeat the words using the audio recording [click for audio].
3. Spreek uit. mond (mouth) – lip (lip) – land (country) – tand (tooth) – pil (pill) – kok (cook), dek (deck), kus (kiss), plant (plant), vlak (flat, level, smooth).
4. Herhaal de woorden nu met de geluidsopname [click for audio].

    

   Attachment : 1.2 Exercise ab.m4a

   Attachment : 1.2 Exercise cd.m4a

   Attachment : Assimilation.m4a

   Attachment : bed - eb - bad (DU).m4a

   Attachment : bed - web - bad (EN).m4a

   Attachment : English ptk.m4a

   Attachment : English sp st sk-sch.m4a

   Attachment : Glottal Stop.m4a

   Attachment : pit - tip - cat (EN).m4a

   Attachment : pit - tip - kat (DU).m4a

    

1.3 – LONG VOWELS

Even though in Dutch they are called long vowels, ironically they are only half long – but that is a technicality. In any case, next to being used for short vowels, a – e – i – o – u can also be used to represent long vowels, although there are strict spelling rules to live by. That is, these long vowels can also be represented by the combinations aa – ee – ie – oo – uu. Additionally, there are two other long vowels: eu – oe.

1.3.1 – SPELLING RULES

Perhaps it is easiest to start with spelling rules to clarify why long vowels can be represented by two different ways of spelling (this does not apply to eu and oe, which are always and only represented by those vowel combinations). For this explanation, we need to return to what I explained about short vowels: short vowels can never be in the coda (the final position of the syllables). Long vowels, instead, can appear at the end of syllables. To facilitate the writing system (i.e., as it saves letters), long vowels can thus be written with one vowel at the end of a syllable: not ‘oopaa’ but ‘opa’. For the ‘a’ it’s obvious that it’s long, because it’s at the end of the word. But how do you know it’s supposed to be o – pa in syllables as opposed to op – a? Simple, to indicate a vowel is short, you double the consonant succeeding it. Consequently, ‘oppa’ [a non-existing word] would have a short o, whereas opa (grandpa, gramps) contains a long o. In spelling, in the case of a double consonant, the first consonant is part of the first syllable, and the second consonant is part of the latter syllable: oppas (babysitter, nanny) is broken up into op – pas.

            Consequently, if a long vowel is not at the end of the syllable, its spelling needs to be doubled in order to differentiate between short and long vowels: zon (sun) is different from zoon (son).

            To every rule there are exceptions: if a long e is at the end of a syllable, it still needs to be spelled with double ee in order to distinguish it from the schwa-sound, which is most often represented by a single e. The spelling for the word ‘sea’ is thus zee and not ze (which has a different meaning). In borrowed words, ‘ee’ is spelled as ‘é’. Also, speaking of exceptions, in native Dutch words and at the end of all words the long i is always represented as ‘ie’. In borrowed words, though, if mid-word syllables end in a long i, they are written as ‘i,’ such as in visie (vision [on plans and ideas, not literally]), which in syllables would be vie – sie (and, interestingly, in this word the s is pronounced as a z, which otherwise almost never happens in Dutch).

            After all of this you might feel discombobulated right now, but I promise that once we start practising these spelling rules after 1.3.2, some sense will begin to appear – and after more practice you’ll become quite adept at this.

1.3.2 – PRONUNCIATION

Let’s have a look at the pronunciation of the long vowels, as some of these sounds do not exist in English.

a / aa – this sound does not appear in either standardised British English or standardised American English. What comes closest is the interjection ‘ah!’ in English. I always compare the Dutch a/aa to going to the dentist: try and open your mouth wide to pronounce this. The IPA notation for the Dutch vowel is /aˑ/. (The ˑ symbol indicates the sound is half long.) Examples are aap (monkey), laat (late), maan (moon), naam (name), and vaak (often). [click for audio]

e / ee – in the Netherlands pronounced like English ‘ay’ as in ‘lay’ or ‘may.’ In Belgium, this glide towards a j-sound (‘y’ in English is a j-sound) is not made. Its IPA notation is /eˑ/. Examples include been (leg), café (café), nee (no), vee (cattle), and zee (sea). [Flemish ee] [Dutch ee]

i / ie – pronounced like English ‘ea’ or ‘ee’ as in ‘feet’ or ‘heat.’ Its IPA notation is /iˑ/. Examples are dief (thief), iets (something), lief (kind, sweet), tien (ten), and vies (dirty, filthy). [click for audio]

o / oo – pronounced somewhat like English ‘aw’ in ‘lawn’ or ‘yawn,’ but with rounder lips. Dutch speakers tend to let the long o glide into a w, Belgian speakers do not. Its IPA notation is /oˑ/. Examples include ook (also, too), oom (uncle), boom (tree), boot (boat), and zoon (son). [Flemish oo] [Dutch oo]

u / uu – pronounced like Dutch i / ie, but with rounded lips (so do not change anything else about the pronunciation but the lips). It is a sound that does not exist in English, but next to Dutch is also found in, for instance, German (represented as ü), French (represented as u), and Turkish (represented as ü). The vowel is usually followed by an r, there are few words that use it in combination with a different consonant. Its IPA notation is /y/. Examples are u (you, formal), nu (now), duur (expensive), muur (wall), uur (hour), vuur (fire), and zuur (sour). We’ll tackle the pronunciation of the Dutch ‘r’ at a later stage (1.5), so don’t worry about mastering it right now. [click for audio]

oe – pronounced somewhat like the ‘oo,’ though the lips are pouting a tad more. In most other languages, this sound is spelled as ‘u,’ such as in German (du – you) and Spanish (tu – you). Unsurprisingly, it’s IPA notation is /u/. Examples include boek (book), koe (cow), moe (tired), voet (foot), and zoet (sweet). [click for audio]

eu – pronounced like Dutch oe, but with the lips pouting even more, and pressed forward. The sound is also more in the front of the mouth (it feels as if the tongue is trying to push the sound out of the mouth). This sound also exists in German and Turkish (represented as ‘ö’) and in Danish (represented as ø). Its IPA notation is /øˑ/. Examples are beuk (beech, the type of tree), keus (choice), leuk (enjoyable, funny, nice), neus (nose), and sneu (a pity, pathetic, sad). [click for audio]

In non-native, so borrowed, words, some of these sounds also exist, but then they are pronounced longer and are thus true long vowels.

OEFENINGEN

1. Spreek uit: zin – zien (sentence – to see), vest – feest (vest – feast, party), bus – buurt (bus – neighbourhood), tak – taak (branch – task), bom – boom (bomb – tree), bos – boos (forest – angry), vis – vies (fish, dirty), kas – kaas (greenhouse – cheese), en – één (and – one), fut – fuut (energy, grebe [a bird species]).
2. Herhaal deze woorden nu met de geluidsopname: [click for audio].
3. Spreek uit: kind (child) – dik (fat, thick) – steen (stone) – stoep (pavement) – fiets (bicycle) – teen (toe) – baan (job) – nat (wet) – maand (month) – deuk (dent).
4. Herhaal deze woorden nu met de geluidsopname: [click for audio].
5. Verdeel deze woorden in lettergrepen. Je kunt de antwoorden in de bijlage vinden. Divide these words into syllables. You can find the answers in the attachment. niemand (nobody) – zoveel (so much, that much) – ballon (balloon) – koning (king) – beving (tremor) – landing (landing) – oma (grandma) – etmaal (24 hours) – zoals (like, such as) – nadat (after, after which, once).
6. Spreek de Nederlandse woorden uit oefening e uit. Pronounce the Dutch words from exercise e.
7. Herhaal deze woorden nu met de geluidsopname. [click for audio]

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