Dutch · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "het" in Dutch?

Q: How do you pronounce het in Dutch?

het is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /ɦɛt/, unstressed /ət/. It means “the (neuter).” In speech it is almost always just "ut" — the h disappears and the vowel becomes a schwa.

In speech it is almost always just "ut" — the h disappears and the vowel becomes a schwa.

het /ɦɛt/, unstressed /ət/

As an article it is unstressed and reduced; as the pronoun "it" it can carry weight and then keeps its h and full vowel. Same spelling, two rhythmic lives, and the difference is audible: "HET is mooi" versus "ut huis is mooi."

Listen: het

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Sound it out

h Present in careful speech as a soft voiced breath, but routinely dropped altogether in the article. Dutch writers even spell the reduced form 't.

e Short "eh" when the word is stressed, but a plain schwa in its normal unstressed life as an article.

t A quiet final t that survives even when everything before it has been reduced — "'t huis" keeps the t and nothing else.

Hear it in a sentence

Het huis is heel groot.

The house is very big.

Listen: Het huis is heel groot.

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"Het huis is heel groot" begins with the reduced article running straight into "huis," whose ui diphthong is one of Dutch's hardest. The result in speech is a single mouthful, "ut-HOWSS," and separating the two words with a careful "het" is the mark of a beginner.

Where English speakers slip

English speakers say "het" exactly as spelled, with a strong h and the vowel of "met," every single time. Native speakers essentially never do this for the article. Learn the reduced "ut" first and treat the full form as the exception. Choosing between "het" and "de" is a separate battle: gender is not predictable from meaning, so the article has to be memorised with the noun.