Dutch · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "alleen" in Dutch?

Q: How do you pronounce alleen in Dutch?

alleen is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /ɑˈleːn/. It means “alone / only.” ah-LAYN — unstressed first syllable, then the beat on the long "ay."

ah-LAYN — unstressed first syllable, then the beat on the long "ay."

alleen /ɑˈleːn/

Second syllable takes it — al-LEEN, never AL-leen — which is unusual enough to be worth memorising. The word derives from "al" plus "een," and the numeral half kept the accent when the two fused.

Listen: alleen

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Sound it out

a Short, open and unstressed, passing quickly before the beat arrives.

ll One bright l in speech. The doubled letter is a spelling device keeping the preceding a short, and it also marks the syllable boundary.

ee Held long and steady, carrying the primary stress. Nothing about a stressed Dutch syllable may be mumbled.

n A well-defined final n that closes the word off rather than letting the vowel drift into nasalisation.

Hear it in a sentence

Ik woon alleen.

I live alone.

Listen: Ik woon alleen.

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"Ik woon alleen" places the adverb after the verb with nothing else in the clause, so it carries the sentence's final beat. The same word can also mean "only," as in "alleen jij," and the difference is purely contextual — the pronunciation is identical.

Where English speakers slip

Front-stressing to "AL-leen" is the standard error and it makes the word sound like a compound rather than a unit. Learners also hold the double l. And the two meanings cause trouble: "ik werk alleen" can mean either "I work alone" or "I only work," and Dutch relies on word order and intonation to disambiguate.