Dutch · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "groen" in Dutch?

Q: How do you pronounce groen in Dutch?

groen is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /ɣrun/. It means “green.” khroon — the scraping Dutch g, then "oo" as in "moon." Nothing here rhymes with English "green."

khroon — the scraping Dutch g, then "oo" as in "moon." Nothing here rhymes with English "green."

groen /ɣrun/

The long "oe" is what gives this one-beat word its heft. Add the adjective ending and you get "groene," where the beat stays put and a schwa is simply tacked on — Dutch inflection almost never disturbs the stressed syllable.

Listen: groen

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Sound it out

g Narrow the channel between the back of the tongue and the soft palate and push air through until it scrapes audibly. Unlike a k, you can hold this sound as long as your breath lasts.

r Follows the friction immediately. Keep the airstream running from the g into the r rather than stopping and restarting — the two together are one continuous gesture.

oe A plain "oo" as in "boot." Two letters, one vowel, and never the "oh-eh" an English reader might construct from the spelling.

n A firm final n with the tongue tip on the ridge. It belongs to the root, so it is never dropped.

Hear it in a sentence

Het gras is groen.

The grass is green.

Listen: Het gras is groen.

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"Het gras is groen" leaves the adjective uninflected because it follows the verb, and both content words happen to begin with the same velar fricative — "gras" and "groen" — so the sentence is a compact drill for that sound. The neuter article "het" reduces to "ut," keeping the rhythm on the two g-words.

Where English speakers slip

Nearly every beginner produces "green" with a hard English g and the vowel of "seen," since the word looks so much like its English cousin. Both are wrong: the g is a sustained scrape, and "oe" is the "oo" of "boot." The result should sound closer to "khroon" than to anything in English, and the mismatch with the familiar spelling is exactly why this word trips people up for months.