Dutch · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "de hand" in Dutch?

Q: How do you pronounce de hand in Dutch?

de hand is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /də ˈɦɑnt/. It means “hand.” duh HAHNT — soft voiced h, an open back "ah," and the final d said as a t.

duh HAHNT — soft voiced h, an open back "ah," and the final d said as a t.

de hand /də ˈɦɑnt/

This noun appears in dozens of fixed expressions — "de hand geven," "aan de hand," "met de hand" — and in every one of them it holds the beat while the surrounding function words stay unstressed.

Listen: de hand

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Sound it out

h Voiced and gentle, with the vocal cords humming through it — closer to a sigh than to the sharp puff of English "hand."

a Open and produced at the back of the mouth. English "hand" uses a much flatter, more forward vowel.

nd Both audible, with the d surfacing as a t. "Handen" restores it, which is the standard way to check what a devoiced Dutch consonant really is.

Hear it in a sentence

Geef me je hand.

Give me your hand.

Listen: Geef me je hand.

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"Geef me je hand" is a bare imperative with the object pronoun before the noun, an order English cannot mirror without "to." The verb stem "geef" also devoices its own final consonant, so the sentence has two devoicing sites in four words.

Where English speakers slip

The English "hand" is spelled identically and differs in three places: the h is aspirated, the vowel is flat and forward, and the final d is voiced. Dutch softens the h, opens and backs the vowel, and devoices the d. Getting all three is what makes the word sound native rather than borrowed.