Dutch · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "bellen" in Dutch?

Q: How do you pronounce bellen in Dutch?

bellen is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /ˈbɛlə(n)/. It means “to call (on the phone).” BEL-uh — short "eh," one bright l despite the doubled spelling, and no final n in speech.

BEL-uh — short "eh," one bright l despite the doubled spelling, and no final n in speech.

bellen /ˈbɛlə(n)/

The double consonant is the rhythm clue, telling you why the stressed vowel is short rather than long. Set it beside a hypothetical "belen," where the spelling would force a long vowel, and the function of that extra l becomes obvious: a length marker, not a doubled sound.

Listen: bellen

Free browser voice. Hear it read by a real native speaker inside the LingoDrop app.

Sound it out

b A clean voiced stop, released without aspiration.

e Brief and lax. The doubled l behind it is the spelling's guarantee that it stays that way.

ll One l sound, and a bright one: tongue tip forward, tongue body low. English darkens l before a consonant or at the end of a word, but Dutch keeps this one light.

en The bright l runs straight into the schwa, giving "BEL-uh" with no audible break between them.

Hear it in a sentence

Ik bel je later.

I'll call you later.

Listen: Ik bel je later.

Free browser voice. Hear it read by a real native speaker inside the LingoDrop app.

"Ik bel je later" uses the stem "bel," which drops one l because the syllable is now closed by the l itself. Dutch present tense does duty for the future here, so no equivalent of "will" appears — the time word "later" carries that information alone.

Where English speakers slip

English speakers hold the double l, producing "bell-len," or they darken it into the hollow l of English "bell." Both are audible. The word also has a false friend problem: "bellen" means to telephone, not to ring a bell, and beginners who see the cognate reach for it in the wrong contexts.