Tag Archives: pronunciation
Practice Dutch with these Tongue Twisters Posted by Karoly Molina on Jun 24, 2020
When you learn a new language, sometimes you have to teach your mouth and tongue to move in new ways to get the right pronunciation. Tongue twisters or tongbrekers are a fun way to practice and in this post, I want to share a few. Knap de kapper The first tongbreker is about a kapper or hairdresser named Knap…
The Top Dutch Posts of 2017 Posted by Karoly Molina on Dec 27, 2017
2017 has been a great year for learning Dutch! The blog posts from this year covered a diverse range of topics some of which sparked great conversations! The most popular posts for this year are the following: Pronouncing the R in Dutch Pronouncing the R when speaking Dutch is a challenge. On this post, Jake…
Tweeklanken 4: oe, oei, oi, ooi Posted by Sten on Aug 23, 2017
In the past weeks, we talked about tweeklanken. Today is our last instalment with one of the least common combinations: those with an o. Let’s start! The past posts in this series: Tweeklanken 1: ae, ai, aai, au/ou Tweeklanken 2: ie, ieu(w), ij/ei Tweeklanken 3: eeu(w), ei, eu, ui oe Oe is actually super common. It…
Tweeklanken 3: eeu(w), ei, eu, ui Posted by Sten on Aug 14, 2017
Hi again. Welcome to the third instalment on the series on tweeklanken. Today, we discuss those that start with an e. Last week, we discussed ei already, as it is very much related to the ij. The other two tweeklanken with e are pretty straightforward, I think. Furthermore, because the ui and eu are kind of related in what they sound like, I will also discuss ui today. They are…
Tweeklanken 2: ie, ieu(w), ij/ei Posted by Sten on Aug 8, 2017
Hi there! Welcome to the second post on tweeklanken, or vowel combinations. Here’s last week’s post on ae, ai, aai, and au/ou. Today we have an exciting one, because we will discuss the ij, one very special letter in the Dutch alphabet and in the realm of tweeklanken. Apart from the ij, we will discuss the ie and ieu(w) today, because they also start with an i…
Tweeklanken 1: ae, ai, aai, au/ou Posted by Sten on Jul 31, 2017
Dutch is pretty straightforward with its alfabet (alphabet): It has 26 letters, there are no special ones. So, that’s pretty simple! However, there are some lettercombinaties (letter combinations) that create a different sound. There are 16 of them, and in the coming weeks, we will have a look at all of them. Today, we start of with those starting…
Pronouncing the R in Dutch Posted by Jakob Gibbons on Mar 14, 2017
The R is by far the most interesting letter in Dutch pronunciation. It can be pronounced with a tap of the tip of the tongue, a contortion of the middle of the tongue, a gurgle from the throat, or any of a handful of other ways. Sometimes it sounds like a rolled Spanish r, sometimes…