Dutch · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "de jongen" in Dutch?

Q: How do you pronounce de jongen in Dutch?

de jongen is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /də ˈjɔŋə(n)/. It means “boy.” duh YONG-uh — y-sound at the front, a single velar nasal, and the final n dropped.

duh YONG-uh — y-sound at the front, a single velar nasal, and the final n dropped.

de jongen /də ˈjɔŋə(n)/

Weight at the front, second syllable near-empty. The plural is identical to the singular in this word — "de jongen" can be one boy or several, distinguished only by context — which is a small oddity worth knowing.

Listen: de jongen

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Sound it out

j The y of "yes," as always in Dutch. The word opens like "young," never like "jungle."

o Short and rounded, closer to British "long" than to American, and closed off by the nasal.

ng One velar nasal running straight into the schwa. No hard g appears between them, which is exactly where English speakers go wrong.

en The weak ending, reduced to a schwa with the n dropped — so the written word ends in n twice over and the spoken one not at all.

Hear it in a sentence

De jongen leert elke dag voor school.

The boy studies for school every day.

Listen: De jongen leert elke dag voor school.

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"De jongen leert elke dag voor school" uses "leren" for studying and "voor" for the purpose. "School" at the end has a long "oh" and no article, since Dutch drops it in this fixed institutional phrase just as English does.

Where English speakers slip

Inserting a hard g gives "YON-gun" on the model of English "longer." Dutch keeps the nasal alone before the schwa. The English j is the other reflex error. Fix the j first — it is audible from the word's first instant and it applies to every j in the language.