Learn Dutch pronunciation
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| Mies: Welcome back to DutchPod101.com. This is All About Lesson 4: Dutch Pronunciation Made Easy. I’m Mies. |
| Jacob: Hallo, I’m Jacob. |
| Mies: And welcome to this All About Dutch lesson. Today, we're going to share our take on Dutch pronunciation with you. |
| Jacob: Pronunciation of the Dutch language is often considered one of the hardest parts of learning the language, but probably also the most important one. |
| Mies: From experience, one of the best ways to get Dutch pronunciation down is to listen and repeat, and listen and repeat. |
| Jacob: Yes, just copy the sounds a native speaker makes, like I do! |
| Mies: And yes, just like that annoying song you can't get out of your head, one day Dutch will get stuck in your head, and you'll be set for life. |
| Jacob: So make sure you repeat all the sounds I make today. That will get you on the road to speaking Dutch. |
| Mies: Yep! So first, learning about the Dutch alphabet is going to help make things clearer. |
| Jacob: Yes, let's briefly repeat the characteristics of the Dutch alphabet. |
| Mies: So, there are twenty-six letters in total in the Dutch alphabet. |
| Jacob: Six vowels and 20 consonants. |
| Mies: These letters are often pronounced differently when they stand alone, compared to when they are in words. |
| Jacob: Yes. Take the vowels, for example. They are “ a,e,i,o,u,y” |
| Mies: It's important to know this reading of the alphabet, as many letters are read the same when in words. |
| Jacob: Let’s have a look at the first three vowels, the “ a,e and i” if we spell these vowels in Dutch we would say “ a,e,i” |
| Mies: That can be quite confusing. I will say the English pronunciation followed by the Dutch one. “ a = a” “e = e” and “ i = i “ |
| Jacob: Yeah that is confusing indeed. |
| Mies: Well let’s see how we can use these in a word. The letter “a” in the Dutch word kat, (English “cat”) is pronounced like the letter “a “ in ‘what.’ The letter “e” in the Dutch word “ melk”, (English “milk”) is pronounced like the letter “e “ in bell. The letter “i” in the Dutch word “ ik”, (English “ I”) is pronounced like the letter “i “ in “thin” |
| Mies: We won't go through the whole alphabet in this chapter. But if you really want to sink your teeth in the right Dutch pronunciation, you can listen to our pronunciation series online. |
| Jacob: Just go to www.DutchPod101.com to download them. |
| Mies: Right. So there are a few important points about Dutch pronunciation we need to tell our listeners. |
| Jacob: Yes. The first things we need to mention are Dutch accents. |
| Mies: Yes. I'm sure you're all wondering what that little line above some Dutch letters actually does! |
| Jacob: Well, as in many other languages, it indicates which syllable is stressed in a word. |
| Mies: Yes, I learned this by reading along with a native speaker. |
| Jacob: And be careful, depending on where the accent is, the meaning can change too! |
| Mies: I know for example “hé” and hè, they are both spelled “h-e”. But through the different accent marks the first “hé” means “hey” and “hè” is often used when you don’t understand something like “uhh” |
| Jacob: Moving on to the second point, the consonants. |
| Mies: Yes! Now let's hear them! |
| Jacob: Okay! But, well, we have 20 of them and actually many of them sound the same as in English. |
| Mies: True but some do sound different, for example The letters "d" and |
| "b", when occurring at the end of a word, are in fact pronounced as /t/ and /p/ respectively. |
| Jacob: Like “goed” , “good” in English. The last letter “d” in the Dutch word sounds like a “t”, “goed” or Like “heb” , “have” in English. The last letter “b” in the Dutch word sounds like a “p”, “heb” |
| Mies: We can also combine consonants and they will produce different sounds. |
| Like “ng” in the Dutch word “jongen”, which is “boy” in English. |
| Jacob: Yeah the “ng” sounds like the last sound in the English word “sing” |
| Mies: Wow! That doesn't sound too difficult! Many of these sounds are used in English as well. |
| Jacob: Exactly. |
| Mies: So we combined two consonants to make a new sound, we can also combine the vowels and make new sounds. |
| Jacob: So what combinations can we make here? |
| Mies: Well we can double the vowels. For example we use two a’s in the Dutch word “ maar” meaning “but” or two e’s in the Dutch word “meer” meaning “more.” |
| Jacob : Sounds great . |
| Mies: Well to make more combos we can basically put any two vowels together. Like “eu”, “oe” “au”. |
| Jacob. Wow there is a lot of creativity in this language! . |
| Mies: Ha ha yeah! |
| Jacob: and you can learn it ! |
| Mies: Yes, and if I can learn, you can learn it!!! |
| Jacob: One day, if you just keep on practicing, it will all click. We promise. |
| Mies: You can trust us. |
| Jacob: Great! Now we're all biting our tongues here; don't forget to listen and repeat what I say to help your brain really get wrapped around the sounds. |
| Mies: Yep, that's what will do it. |
| Jacob: Okay, phew! Done! So we know that wasn't that fun, but it was necessary. |
| Mies: It surely was! |
| Jacob: Now remember, one of the best ways to get Dutch pronunciation down is to listen and repeat, and listen and repeat, which is something you can do at DutchPod101.com. We have audio files of native speakers and even a voice recorder for you to see how you sound in comparison. |
| Jacob: That’s it for this lesson. Bye! |
| Mies: Dag! |
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