Dutch · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "het restaurant" in Dutch?

Q: How do you pronounce het restaurant in Dutch?

het restaurant is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /ət rɛstoːˈrɑnt/. It means “restaurant.” ut res-toh-RAHNT — a French loan with the stress on the final syllable.

ut res-toh-RAHNT — a French loan with the stress on the final syllable.

het restaurant /ət rɛstoːˈrɑnt/

The accent falls on the last syllable, as it does in French. Dutch borrows this family of words wholesale — restaurant, moment, station, cadeau — and keeps their end-stress intact, which makes them systematic exceptions to the usual front-stress habit.

Listen: het restaurant

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

Sound it out

res- An unstressed opening: light r, short "eh," and a hissing s. It passes quickly on the way to the beat.

tau- Pronounced "toh" — the French au spelling gives a long "oh" in Dutch too, and this syllable carries secondary weight.

r A brief tap opening the stressed syllable. It belongs to the final syllable rather than closing the one before it.

ant Short open "ah" plus n and t, carrying the primary stress. Careful Dutch keeps all three sounds; some speakers nasalise the vowel in imitation of French.

Hear it in a sentence

We eten in een goed restaurant.

We're eating at a good restaurant.

Listen: We eten in een goed restaurant.

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

"We eten in een goed restaurant" leaves the adjective uninflected before a neuter noun with "een." The verb "eten" comes second and the prepositional phrase follows, so the sentence builds steadily toward the late-stressed noun at the end.

Where English speakers slip

English speakers front-stress it as "RES-taurant" or apply the American two-syllable compression "REST-rant." Dutch says all four syllables with the beat at the end. The middle vowel is also a plain "oh" — not the "aw" that English gives "restaurant" in some accents.