Dutch · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "heel" in Dutch?

hayl — soft voiced h, long "ay," and a bright l. Not the English "heel."

heel /ɦeːl/

One beat, but as an intensifier it usually gives up its prominence to the adjective it modifies: in "heel goed" the melody peaks on GOED, not on "heel." Say it with weight only when you want to insist on the degree itself.

Listen: heel

Free browser voice. Hear it read by a real native speaker inside the LingoDrop app.

Sound it out

h Voiced and gentle, with the vocal cords humming through it rather than a sharp puff.

ee Hold it steady. The English "hail" glides toward "ee"; Dutch stops the tongue at the halfway point and stays.

l A bright final l with the tongue tip forward. English l at the end of "heel" is dark and hollow, which changes the vowel before it.

Hear it in a sentence

Deze film is heel goed.

This movie is very good.

Listen: Deze film is heel goed.

Free browser voice. Hear it read by a real native speaker inside the LingoDrop app.

"Deze film is heel goed" puts the intensifier directly before the adjective, exactly where English puts "very." The two words run together as one rhythmic unit, hayl-KHOOT, with the fricative of "goed" doing most of the acoustic work.

Where English speakers slip

English "heel" supplies the "ee" of "seen" and a dark l — both wrong. Dutch ee is lower and the l is bright. There is also a meaning fork: "heel" as an intensifier means very, but "heel" as an adjective means whole, so "de hele dag" is the whole day, not a very day.