Dutch · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "boos" in Dutch?

bohs — a clean b, a long flat "oh," and a plain hiss. Not the English "boos."

boos /boːs/

The inflected "boze" shows two changes at once — the doubled o drops as the syllable opens and the s becomes a z — while the accented vowel itself sounds identical.

Listen: boos

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Sound it out

b A voiced stop released cleanly, opening straight into the long vowel.

oo Long and steady, held at one position. English "boast" glides toward "oo" at the end; Dutch keeps the tongue parked.

s Voiceless at the end. The inflected "boze" turns it into a z between vowels, which is why the spelling shifts.

Hear it in a sentence

Mijn vader is boos.

My father is angry.

Listen: Mijn vader is boos.

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"Mijn vader is boos" ends on the bare adjective in predicate position, so the final s is fully exposed with nothing after it. Compare "mijn boze vader," where the inflected form would reveal the underlying z.

Where English speakers slip

The English "boos" supplies the "oo" of "moon," which is the wrong vowel entirely — Dutch "oo" is an "oh." Learners also glide it. And the spelling change in "boze" catches people in writing: "boose" is wrong, and it must be a z between vowels.