❀ 𝕕𝕦𝕥𝕔𝕙 𝕝𝕒𝕟𝕘𝕦𝕒𝕘𝕖 𝕝𝕖𝕤𝕤𝕚𝕠𝕟 #𝟙 | 𝕡𝕣𝕠𝕟𝕦𝕟𝕔𝕚𝕒𝕥𝕚𝕠𝕟𝕤 ❀

Heyy lovelies! ♡

I'm finally starting a series I've been wanting to do for such a long time! I have seen a lot of these before and I really wanted to make my own version of it.

I know I'm actually a kpop page, but I love languages aswell. I really want to do my best to provide people free language "courses".

DISCLAIMER: I am not a professional teacher, I'm just doing this for fun.

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𝐃𝐈𝐅𝐅𝐈𝐂𝐔𝐋𝐓 𝐋𝐄𝐓𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐂𝐎𝐌𝐁𝐈𝐍𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐒

Dutch is said to be a very hard language to learn. And as a native speaker, I agree that it can be hard for foreigners.

One aspect of the language that makes it extra hard is the variety of difficult sounds and/or letter combinations.

So before I am going to teach you any phrases or words, I want to go through the letter combinations that may be unknown to most foreigners.

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𝘌𝘟𝘛𝘌𝘕𝘋𝘌𝘋 𝘝𝘖𝘞𝘌𝘓𝘚

In Dutch, you sometimes write the same vowel twice after eachother. All vowels (except y) have an extended version.

I am going to show you the difference between the sound of the usual vowels and the extended vowels with some examples.

K𝐚t (cat) → The sound of "a" here is similar to the "o" in the American way of saying "got".

L𝐚𝐚t (late/let) → The sound of "aa" is basically just an "a" as I just teached it to you, but more stretched/longer.

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M𝐞t (with) → The sound of "e" here is the exact same as in the English word "get".

G𝐞𝐞st (ghost) → The sound of "ee" here is pronounced as "a" in "face".

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Gel𝐮k (luck) → The sound of "u" here is similar to the "u" in "unwanted" but not exactly. It's difficult to explain the Dutch "u" to a foreigner. I suggest looking for an audio fragment with this sound included.

V𝐮𝐮r (fire) → The sound of "uu(r)" sounds like "u('re)". But again, it's not 100% the exact same sound.

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D𝐨m (dumb/stupid) → The sound of "o" is like the "o" in "born".

B𝐨𝐨m (tree) → The sound of "oo" is like the "o" in "throne".

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B𝐢nnen (inside) → The sound of "i" is like the "i" in "hint".

The extended vowel for "i" is "ie" and not "ii".

T𝐢𝐞n (ten) → The sound of "ie" is like the "ea" in "clean".

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𝘚𝘊𝘏 𝘈𝘕𝘋 𝘊𝘏

"Sch" and "ch" are used quite often in the Dutch language. So it's important you know how to pronounce them.

It doesn't happen that often, but whenever a word starts with "ch", it's most of the time pronounced as "sh" as in "short".

𝐂𝐡ampagne (champagne)
𝐂𝐡ocolade (chocolate)
𝐂𝐡ique/𝐂𝐡ic (chic)
𝐂𝐡eck (check)

However, when "ch" is more towards the end of a word, it's pronounced as a "g". Of course the Dutch "g", and not the English "g".

La𝐜𝐡 (smile/laugh)
Na𝐜𝐡t (night)
Za𝐜𝐡t (soft)
Va𝐜𝐡t (fur)

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With "sch" it's kind of the other way around.

When "sch" is at the beginning of a word it's pronounced as "sg".

𝐒𝐜𝐡aal (bowl)
𝐒𝐜𝐡aar (scissors)
𝐒𝐜𝐡oen (shoe)
𝐒𝐜𝐡aken (playing chess)

When "sch" is at the end of a word it's pronounced as a regular "s".

Russi𝐬𝐜𝐡 (Russian)
Australi𝐬𝐜𝐡 (Australian)
Indi𝐬𝐜𝐡 (Indian)
Indonesi𝐬𝐜𝐡 (Indonesian)

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𝘐𝘑 𝘈𝘕𝘋 𝘌𝘐

What many people don't know is, that "ij" and "ei" have the exact same pronunciation.

The sound is very similar to the English word "eye". It's not 100% the same, but it comes very close.

There are sadly no rules on whether to write "ij" or "ei", so you'll just have to remember how a word is spelled.

Some words with "ij":

𝐈𝐉s (ice/ice cream)
Parad𝐢𝐣s (paradise)
L𝐢𝐣st (list)
Vr𝐢𝐣 (free as in being free, not as in something is for free)

And some words with "ei":

𝐄𝐢 (egg)
M𝐞𝐢sje (girl)
R𝐞𝐢s (trip/travel)
Kl𝐞𝐢n (small/little)

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𝘈𝘜 𝘈𝘕𝘋 𝘖𝘜

Just like "ij" and "ei", these two have the exact same sound.

It's pronounced as "ow" in "now".

And sadly, just like we saw with "ij" and "ei", there is no rule for this one either.

Some words with "au":

P𝐚𝐮w (peacock)
𝐀𝐮to (car)
Mi𝐚𝐮w (meow)
S𝐚𝐮s (sauce)

And words with "ou":

Z𝐨𝐮t (salt)
M𝐨𝐮w (sleeve)
𝐎𝐮d (old)
G𝐨𝐮d (gold)

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𝘖𝘌, 𝘌𝘜 𝘈𝘕𝘋 𝘜𝘐

I have three more difficult letter combinations.

The first one is "oe". This one is the easiest to pronounce for foreigners. It's pronounced as "oo" in "book".

Z𝐨𝐞k (search)
B𝐨𝐞k (book)
H𝐨𝐞k (corner)
Bez𝐨𝐞k (visit)

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"Next up, is "eu". This one is a bit harder, but once you get it it's easy. The sound of "eu" is very similar to the German "Ö".

N𝐞𝐮s (nose)
R𝐞𝐮s (giant)
L𝐞𝐮k (something is fun)
D𝐞𝐮r (door)

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Lastly, we have the most difficult sound of this entire article. I'm talking here about "ui". This is the only sound which I can literally not explain. There isn't really an English sound I can compare it to.

So I suggest you search this one on Youtube, cause there is no way I'm gonna be able to teach it to you by just typing.

H𝐮𝐢s (house)
T𝐮𝐢n (garden)
B𝐮𝐢ten (outside)
H𝐮𝐢d (skin)

♡