Dutch · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "hallo" in Dutch?

Q: How do you pronounce hallo in Dutch?

hallo is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /ɦɑˈloː/. It means “hello.” hah-LOH, with the beat on the second syllable — not on the first the way English "HELL-o" does it.

hah-LOH, with the beat on the second syllable — not on the first the way English "HELL-o" does it.

hallo /ɦɑˈloː/

Dutch flips the English pattern: the primary beat falls on the second syllable, hal-LOH. Borrowed greetings in Dutch commonly carry this final-syllable weight, and reversing it is the quickest way to sound foreign in a single word.

Listen: hallo

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Sound it out

h A breathy, voiced h: the vocal cords keep buzzing right through it, so it comes out warmer and softer than the sharp puff of English "hat."

a Short open "ah" as in "father" but clipped off quickly, because it sits in a closed syllable sealed by the l.

ll One single l sound, never a held one. The doubled letter exists only to keep the preceding a short — Dutch spelling uses double consonants as a vowel-length signal.

o Long, pure "oh" with a faint glide toward "oo" at the end. Keep it fully formed rather than letting it sag into an unstressed English "uh."

Hear it in a sentence

Hallo, ik ben Tom.

Hi, I'm Tom.

Listen: Hallo, ik ben Tom.

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"Hallo, ik ben Tom" runs the greeting straight into the pronoun with barely a pause, so it lands as one breath group with "ben" reduced to a quick /bən/. Note also that Dutch uses "ben," the first-person form of zijn, where English says "am" — no separate word for the copula is ever dropped.

Where English speakers slip

English speakers import their own greeting wholesale: "HELL-oh," with the punch on syllable one and the first vowel turned into the /ɛ/ of "bell." Dutch wants an open "ah" there and the weight on syllable two. The h also tends to get over-aspirated — Dutch h is voiced and gentle, closer to the h in a sighed "ahh-ha" than to the explosive English one.