Dutch · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "er" in Dutch?

Q: How do you pronounce er in Dutch?

er is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /ər/. It means “there (existential).” uhr — a schwa with a light r, almost swallowed. It is one of the quietest words in Dutch.

uhr — a schwa with a light r, almost swallowed. It is one of the quietest words in Dutch.

er /ər/

Structurally unstressable in its existential use. Its job is to hold the first slot in the sentence so the verb can occupy second position, and it does that job without drawing any attention to itself. If you can hear it clearly, you are probably saying it too loudly.

Listen: er

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Sound it out

e A bare schwa, the neutral mouth position. This word is unstressed by nature, so the vowel never fills out into anything more definite.

r Extremely light — often just a flick of the tongue or a faint back scrape. Many speakers reduce it so far that the word is little more than a grunt before the verb.

Hear it in a sentence

Er zijn veel kinderen buiten.

There are a lot of children outside.

Listen: Er zijn veel kinderen buiten.

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"Er zijn veel kinderen buiten" uses "er" exactly as English uses "there" in "there are" — a placeholder subject with no meaning of its own. The real information sits in "veel kinderen," and the sentence's melody should reflect that, opening almost inaudibly before rising.

Where English speakers slip

The commonest error is over-pronunciation: English speakers give it a full "air" or "er" with a strong American r, making a grammatical placeholder sound like a content word. Keep it faint. The other difficulty is knowing when it is needed at all — Dutch requires "er" in several constructions where English uses nothing, and omitting it leaves a sentence that natives find distinctly incomplete.