Dutch · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "de kip" in Dutch?

duh KIP — unaspirated k, a short tight i, and a quiet p.

de kip /də ˈkɪp/

The plural "kippen" doubles the p in spelling to keep the vowel short, then adds a schwa — so the word grows by a syllable while the accented part stays untouched.

Listen: de kip

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Sound it out

k Released without a burst of air, unlike the English k that opens "kip" or "kit."

i A high relaxed vowel, and one of the rare cases where the spelling and the sound agree across both languages.

p Lips closed and released quietly. English word-final p carries a small puff; Dutch stops the air and leaves it.

Hear it in a sentence

De kip legt elke dag een ei.

The hen lays an egg every day.

Listen: De kip legt elke dag een ei.

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"De kip legt elke dag een ei" uses "leggen" for laying and ends on "ei," which is a bare diphthong with no consonant after it. That makes the sentence a good place to check whether your ei really starts mid-front rather than wide open.

Where English speakers slip

Aspirating both stops is the whole error here — the vowel comes free from English. Release the k and the p quietly and the word lands. Learners also confuse "kip" the animal with "kip" the meat, but Dutch uses the same word for both, so that ambiguity is genuine rather than a mistake.