Dutch · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "drie" in Dutch?

Q: How do you pronounce drie in Dutch?

drie is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /dri/. It means “three.” dree — like English "tree" but starting with a d, and the r is a light Dutch tap or soft scrape.

dree — like English "tree" but starting with a d, and the r is a light Dutch tap or soft scrape.

drie /dri/

A single strong syllable. Where the stress does become interesting is in derived forms: "dertien" (thirteen) and "dertig" (thirty) put the beat on the first syllable and mangle the vowel of the root, so this simple word does not stay recognisable in its own family.

Listen: drie

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Sound it out

d A true d with the tongue tip on the teeth ridge, said without the breathy release English gives word-initial stops.

r Dutch offers two acceptable r's here: a quick alveolar tap or a soft uvular scrape at the back. Either works, but neither is the English retroflex r that bends the whole vowel around it.

ie A long, tense "ee" as in "free." This digraph is unambiguous — it never splits into two vowels.

Hear it in a sentence

Het is drie uur.

It's three o'clock.

Listen: Het is drie uur.

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"Het is drie uur" is the standard way to tell the time, with "uur" (hour) where English says "o'clock." Note the two vowels colliding across the word boundary — "drie uur" runs "ee" straight into a long "ü" sound, and Dutch does not insert a glide between them.

Where English speakers slip

The English r is the giveaway: pronouncing "drie" with the curled American r produces a vowel coloured all the way through, whereas the Dutch vowel should stay bright and clean once the r is done. Learners also sometimes read "ie" as the diphthong of "pie," influenced by English spelling; it is simply "ee."