Dutch · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "alsjeblieft" in Dutch?

Q: How do you pronounce alsjeblieft in Dutch?

alsjeblieft is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /ˌɑʃəˈblift/. It means “please.” ash-uh-BLEEFT — the "lsj" collapses into a "sh" sound, and the last syllable takes the stress.

ash-uh-BLEEFT — the "lsj" collapses into a "sh" sound, and the last syllable takes the stress.

alsjeblieft /ˌɑʃəˈblift/

Weight lands on the "-blieft" syllable at the very end, which is unusual for Dutch and betrays the phrase's origin as three words squashed into one. The first two syllables are so compressed that many speakers reduce the whole thing to a two-beat "ash-BLIEFT."

Listen: alsjeblieft

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Sound it out

als Short open "ah" plus s, but the l is routinely swallowed in speech, leaving just "ah-s." This is a fused phrase (als je belieft) worn down by centuries of use.

sj The s and j merge into a single "sh," the same sound as in English "ship." Dutch has no native sh, so this assimilation is the closest it gets.

e A reduced schwa carrying no stress — the leftover of the pronoun "je."

ie Long "ee" as in "beef," the stressed heart of the word.

ft A final cluster of f and t, both released cleanly with no vowel wedged between them.

Hear it in a sentence

Een koffie, alsjeblieft.

A coffee, please.

Listen: Een koffie, alsjeblieft.

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"Een koffie, alsjeblieft" places the politeness word after the request, the standard Dutch ordering. Because "alsjeblieft" is the informal form, this sentence would be said to a barista you address as "je"; swap in "alstublieft" when using "u," and the same sh-merger does not occur there.

Where English speakers slip

Learners pronounce every letter — "als-yuh-bleeft" — with a distinct l, s and y. Native speech fuses those into "ash-," and the l disappears entirely. The second problem is the "ie": read as English letters it becomes "blyft" or "bleeyft," when it is simply a long "ee." Finally, this is one long word in speech, not a phrase, so avoid the pause before "-blieft."