Pronunciation

Vowels

(Bold indicates identical pronunciaton)

Duits	Nederlands	Beispiel	Uitspraak / Hint
a	a	missing	missing
a	aa	missing	missing
ä	e	Bäcker	[bekker]
	ee	Mädchen	[meedchjen]
o	o	missing	missing
	oo	missing	missing
ö	eu	stören	[steuren]
u	oe	Mutter	[Moeter]
ü	u	missing	missing
	uu	missing	missing
q	kwaa	Aquarium	[Aak-waa-rie-oem]

(Bold indicates identical pronunciaton)

Duits	Nederlands	Beispiel	Uitspraak / Hint
ei	ai	mein	[main]
eu	oi	heute	[hoite]
äu	oi	Bäume	[boime]

Duits	Nederlands	Beispiel	Uitspraak / Hint
c	ts	CD	[tsee-dee]
s	s	messen	[messen] (see details below)
	sj	Sport	[Sjport] (see details below)
	z	Sommer	[zommer] (see details below)
z	ts	tanzen	[tantsen]
y	u	typisch	[tuu-pisj]
v	f	Vater	soft ‘f’
w	v/w	Wind	Wind - although pronounced closer to a v
sch	sj/ch	Schokolade	chocolade
tsch	tsj	kitsch	[kietsj] - als in Tsjechie
ch		ich	als in ‘wiegje’ (see details below)
		Nacht	nacht (see details below)
g		gerne	als in ‘golf’ (Engels)

Vowels that are followed directly by ck or ch are ‘short’, e.g. noch, Wecker
Vowels that are followed directly by ß are ’long’, e.g. Fuß
Difference between ß and ss:
- Buße, fine, pronounced with long u
- Busse, plural of bus
- der Fuß (long as in koe), die Füße (long as in muur)
- der Fluss (short as in zoek), die Flüsse (kussen)
ch after an a, o, or u is pronounced like in the Dutch word lach^[1]
- Nacht
ch after anything but a, o, or u is pronounced like in the Dutch word vlieg^[2]
- example 1
ch followed by s is pronounced like an ‘x’:
- Fuchs
s at the beginning of the word is pronounced as a z:
- Sommer
s in the middle of the word is as an s
- messen
s followed by a p or a t is pronounced as sj
- Sport
Vowels that are followed by an h should be stretched out:
- Jahren

Dutch pseudo-phonetic in brackets.