Dutch · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "de" in Dutch?

Q: How do you pronounce de in Dutch?

de is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /də/. It means “the (common gender).” duh — a colourless schwa, exactly the sound of the "a" in "about."

duh — a colourless schwa, exactly the sound of the "a" in "about."

de /də/

Never stressed under any circumstances. It is a clitic that attaches to the noun that follows, so "de hond" is rhythmically one word: duh-HOND. If you find yourself giving it a beat, the sentence will sound like it is being read from a card.

Listen: de

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Sound it out

d Tongue tip on the teeth ridge, voiced, with no aspiration. Dutch d is made slightly further forward than the English one, against the upper teeth themselves.

e A pure schwa — the mouth in its neutral resting position. It has no colour of its own and is the weakest vowel in the language.

Hear it in a sentence

De hond slaapt op de bank.

The dog is sleeping on the couch.

Listen: De hond slaapt op de bank.

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"De hond slaapt op de bank" uses the article twice, and both instances vanish into schwas — the sentence has only three real beats, on "hond," "slaapt" and "bank." That "de" appears with both nouns tells you both are common-gender words, which is information you have to memorise noun by noun.

Where English speakers slip

Learners pronounce it "day" or "dee," reading the letter e at face value. Dutch e in an unstressed one-syllable function word is always a schwa. The other frequent error is treating it as a separate spoken word with its own emphasis, when it should lean on the noun so completely that a listener barely registers it.