Dutch · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "helpen" in Dutch?

Q: How do you pronounce helpen in Dutch?

helpen is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /ˈɦɛlpə(n)/. It means “to help.” HEL-puh — soft voiced h, bright l, and the final n usually dropped.

HEL-puh — soft voiced h, bright l, and the final n usually dropped.

helpen /ˈɦɛlpə(n)/

Front-stressed like all plain infinitives, and this one is a good place to hear how little the second syllable matters. The word is essentially one strong beat plus a breath, and English speakers who give "-pen" a real vowel end up with a rhythm no Dutch speaker uses.

Listen: helpen

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Sound it out

h Voiced and gentle, not the sharp exhalation English gives "help."

e Brief and lax, closed off by the lp cluster behind it.

lp A bright forward l running into an unaspirated p. English darkens the l here, pulling the tongue back; Dutch keeps it light, which changes the whole colour of the syllable.

en After the p, this schwa is barely a syllable at all; many speakers produce something closer to a released p than a vowel.

Hear it in a sentence

Ik help je graag.

I'm happy to help you.

Listen: Ik help je graag.

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"Ik help je graag" ends on "graag," which turns a plain statement into an offer — literally "I help you gladly." That little word is doing the politeness work, and its velar fricative at both ends makes the sentence finish on a distinctly Dutch note.

Where English speakers slip

The English "help" is nearly identical on paper, so learners import the dark l and the aspirated h wholesale. Brighten the l by keeping the tongue tip forward and soften the h. Grammatically, "helpen" takes a direct object with no preposition — "ik help je," not "ik help aan je" — which English speakers sometimes overcomplicate.