Dutch · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "de auto" in Dutch?

duh OW-toh — the au diphthong of "out," then an unaspirated t and a long flat "oh."

de auto /də ˈʌutoː/

Front-stressed on the diphthong, with the second syllable unstressed but not reduced — it holds a real "oh" rather than collapsing to a schwa. That combination of front stress and a full final vowel is characteristic of the shorter loanwords.

Listen: de auto

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Sound it out

au A diphthong from an open "ah" gliding toward "oo," exactly the sound Dutch also spells "ou." It opens the word with no consonant in front of it.

t A proper stop between the vowels, never flapped into a d as American English would do in "auto."

o Long and pure, held at one position. The final syllable is unstressed but keeps its full vowel, which is normal for loanwords in Dutch.

Hear it in a sentence

Mijn auto is nieuw.

My car is new.

Listen: Mijn auto is nieuw.

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"Mijn auto is nieuw" ends on the bare adjective, whose "ieu" glides from "ee" into a rounded off-glide. The possessive "mijn" is unstressed, so the sentence has two beats: on AU- and on NIEUW.

Where English speakers slip

American speakers flap the t, producing "OW-doh," and they reduce the final vowel to a schwa. Dutch keeps a real t and a full "oh." Reading "au" as the "aw" of "auto" in English is the third error, and it flattens the diphthong into a single vowel.