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Tag Archives: long vowels

More on why some words get a double consonant in the plural form while others don’t Posted by on Apr 19, 2013

Earlier this week, we tackled the question of why some words get a double consonant in the plural form while others don’t. We talked about Dutch words that have the short vowel sound like bot (bone) and man (man) that need that double consonant in the plural form (bottenĀ and mannen) to maintain their short vowel…

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Why do some words get a double consonant in the plural form and not others? Posted by on Apr 15, 2013

So here’s a question we were asked last week by a reader: “Random question. Woman = vrouw; women = vrouwen. Why not vrouwwen (ie man -> mannen, etc)?” Excellent question! Here’s the deal… As in English, vowels in Dutch can have both the long sound (been, maan) and short sound (ben, kat). In Dutch, the…

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Spelling in Dutch – Part Two Posted by on Mar 15, 2011

Last week I wrote about spelling in Dutch with short vowels. We also looked at the difference between open and closed syllables and how to divide syllables in Dutch. Today we will look at spelling with long vowels and the relationship between f and v, and s and z. Spelling with Long Vowels 1. Long…

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