Dutch pronunciation, explained through songs
8 short lessons on how Dutch actually sounds — the sounds a learner's ear misses and why. Each one lists the songs where you can hear it.
The G and the CH: the same scrape
In Dutch, G and CH are the same sound: a scrape at the back of the throat, with the tongue touching nothing.
In the north it is hard and rasping; south of the rivers and in Belgium much softer. Both are correct.
SCH is that scrape plus an s — but at the END of a word, -SCH is just an «s».
This is the sound every foreigner is spotted by, and the only way to learn it is to overdo it.
Hear it in: Als het avond is (Suzan & Freek)
Long and short: duration changes the word
A vowel is SHORT in a closed syllable and LONG when it is doubled or when the syllable opens up.
Duration is not a nuance here: it separates words that are otherwise identical.
That is why the spelling changes when you conjugate: a long vowel doubles to stay long, a short one doubles the consonant to stay short.
This song's words are below — hold the long ones genuinely longer than feels natural.
Hear it in: Brabant (Guus Meeuwis) · Rood (Marco Borsato)
The diphthongs: one sound, two letters
A handful of letter pairs make a single sound, and none of them sounds like the separate letters suggest.
UI has almost no counterpart in any other language: round the lips and glide.
OE is simply an «oo» and not a diphthong at all, however it looks on paper.
These combinations are exactly what gives Dutch its recognisable shape — this song's words are below.
Hear it in: Blijven slapen (Snelle & Maan) · Bloed, Zweet en Tranen (André Hazes)
At the end, everything goes voiceless
A B, D, V, Z or G at the end of a word is pronounced as its voiceless partner: P, T, F, S, CH.
The spelling does not follow, so what you write and what you say come apart.
That is why the stem changes when you conjugate: the sound was already voiceless, the spelling is merely catching up.
The same happens between singular and plural: the same letter sounds different depending on whether a vowel follows.
Hear it in: Het Regent Zonnestralen (Acda en de Munnik)
EI and IJ sound exactly the same
Two different spellings, one sound. There is no audible difference at all — the Dutch call them short ei and long ij, but that is only about writing.
Which of the two a word takes is pure history: it cannot be worked out, only memorised.
That is why it is one of the classic spelling mistakes made by native speakers themselves.
The sound itself sits between «e» and «a» and glides upward; it is not the «ay» of other languages.
Hear it in: Dansen aan zee (BLØF) · Ik leef niet meer voor jou (Marco Borsato)
The V, the F and the W
The Dutch V sits between the f and the v of other languages: it is far weaker than you expect, and at the start of a word it often sounds almost like an f.
The W is neither an English w nor a German v: the lower lip touches the upper teeth very lightly, without real friction.
The difference between the three is small but audible, and it gives away at once where a speaker comes from.
This song's words are below — say them one after another and watch your lower lip.
Hear it in: Duurt te lang (Davina Michelle) · Stiekem (Maan ft. Goldband)
The schwa: the sound you never spell
The unstressed E becomes a short, colourless sound — the schwa. It turns up in almost every word of more than one syllable.
The spelling does not give it away: the same letter E is sometimes full and sometimes reduced, depending on where the stress falls.
At the end of a word a lone -e is almost always reduced, and in the ending -EN the n simply drops in speech.
Pronouncing every E in full sounds like reading aloud; Dutch lives on that weakening.
Hear it in: Parijs (Kenny B)
The R: pick one and keep it
Dutch allows two Rs: a tongue-tip R at the front and a uvular R at the back. Both are correct and both are heard on the radio.
At the END of a word, though, it changes completely: it becomes a dull sound, closer to a short «uh» than to a consonant.
There is no choice there — rolling that final R sounds foreign immediately.
So pick one for the start of words and let it sink away at the end.
Hear it in: Zoutelande (BLØF ft. Geike Arnaert)
Practise it with the songs
Inside the app every lesson comes with exercises, example sentences and conjugation tables built from the songs you study.