Dutch · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "het begin" in Dutch?

Q: How do you pronounce het begin in Dutch?

het begin is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /ət bəˈɣɪn/. It means “beginning.” ut buh-KHIN — throwaway be- prefix, then the harsh g and a short tight i.

ut buh-KHIN — throwaway be- prefix, then the harsh g and a short tight i.

het begin /ət bəˈɣɪn/

The be- prefix pushes the accent onto the second syllable, which happens to match English "begin." That coincidence makes the rhythm easy and the consonant hard, since learners get the stress right by luck and the g wrong by reflex.

Listen: het begin

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

Sound it out

be- The unstressed prefix, reduced to a bare schwa. It is one of the most reliable stress signposts in the language: whatever follows it takes the beat.

g The velar scrape opening the stressed syllable. English "begin" has a hard g here, which is exactly the sound Dutch does not use.

i The vowel of "tin," kept short by the n that closes the syllable.

n A clean final n, and note that unlike the verb "beginnen" there is only one n here — the noun does not double it.

Hear it in a sentence

In het begin was het moeilijk.

At the beginning it was difficult.

Listen: In het begin was het moeilijk.

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

"In het begin was het moeilijk" opens with a prepositional phrase, which forces the verb ahead of the subject. The adjective at the end carries the "-lijk" suffix said as "-luhk," so the sentence closes on two weak syllables.

Where English speakers slip

The English "begin" supplies a hard g automatically, and that single substitution is the whole difficulty. Keep the air scraping. Learners also give the be- prefix a full vowel, producing "BEE-gin," and they sometimes double the n by analogy with the verb.