How to Pronounce 'Goedemorgen': Dutch Pronunciation Guide

Q: How do you pronounce goedemorgen in Dutch?

goedemorgen is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /ˌɣudəˈmɔrɣə(n)/. It means “good morning.” khoo-duh-MOR-khuh, with the scraping Dutch g at both ends and the stress on MOR.

How do you pronounce "goedemorgen" in Dutch?

khoo-duh-MOR-khuh, with the scraping Dutch g at both ends and the stress on MOR.

goedemorgen /ˌɣudəˈmɔrɣə(n)/

Despite its length, only one syllable is genuinely strong: MOR. "Goede-" is a compressed compound element with secondary weight at most, and the final "-gen" is fully reduced. Getting four syllables to bend around a single peak is what makes the greeting sound native rather than recited.

Listen: goedemorgen

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Sound it out

g (initial) The famous Dutch fricative: raise the back of the tongue toward the soft palate, leave a narrow channel, and force air through until it rasps. It is further back and rougher than the German ach-laut and has no English counterpart at all.

oe Simply "oo" as in "boot." The two letters are one vowel, so resist the urge to read them as "oh-eh."

de An unstressed linking syllable that reduces all the way to "duh" — a schwa, the weakest vowel Dutch has.

mor The stressed core: short open "o" as in "corner," followed by an r that many speakers make as a light tap or a soft back r rather than the English curled one.

gen That harsh g again, now followed by a schwa; in normal speech the final n drops entirely, leaving "-khuh."

Hear it in a sentence

Goedemorgen, hoe gaat het?

Good morning, how's it going?

Listen: Goedemorgen, hoe gaat het?

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"Goedemorgen, hoe gaat het?" strings two g-sounds together within a second of each other — the one closing "morgen" and the one opening "gaat." Practising the sentence as a unit trains the throat to produce the fricative twice without a swallow in between, which is exactly the muscle beginners lack.

Where English speakers slip

The overwhelming error is turning both g's into the hard English g of "good," giving "GOO-duh-mor-gun." Dutch g is never a stop; it is continuous friction you could hold for several seconds. A close second is pronouncing "oe" as two vowels or as the "oh" in "go" — it is a plain "oo." And the final n really does disappear in ordinary speech, so "-khuhn" with a crisp n sounds stiff.