Dutch · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "de ochtend" in Dutch?

Q: How do you pronounce de ochtend in Dutch?

de ochtend is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /də ˈɔxtənt/. It means “morning.” duh OKH-tunt — short rounded o, the harsh ch, and a final d said as a t.

duh OKH-tunt — short rounded o, the harsh ch, and a final d said as a t.

de ochtend /də ˈɔxtənt/

Weight at the front, second syllable reduced to a schwa. Compare "vanochtend" (this morning), where an unstressed prefix is added and the accent shifts rightward onto the same root syllable.

Listen: de ochtend

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Sound it out

o Rounded and cut off at once by the fricative — the vowel barely gets started before the scrape takes over.

cht The rasp closes the stressed syllable and the t opens the weak one, so the cluster straddles the boundary rather than sitting inside one syllable.

end An unstressed ending: schwa, n, and a d that devoices to t. Three consonants and a colourless vowel, all said quickly.

Hear it in a sentence

Ik ren elke ochtend.

I run every morning.

Listen: Ik ren elke ochtend.

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"Ik ren elke ochtend" places the frequency phrase after the verb, which is standard Dutch order. "Elke" takes its -e ending because "ochtend" is a de-word, and the two weak syllables at the end of the noun make the sentence trail off softly.

Where English speakers slip

The cht cluster gets flattened to a k, and the final d gets voiced. Both errors come from reading rather than listening. Learners also give the ending a full vowel, producing "OKH-tend" with a clear "e" — it should be a schwa, so faint it is nearly absent.