Dutch · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "het station" in Dutch?

Q: How do you pronounce het station in Dutch?

het station is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /ət staːˈʃɔn/. It means “station.” ut stah-SHON — plain s at the start, but the "-tion" ending is a genuine "shon."

ut stah-SHON — plain s at the start, but the "-tion" ending is a genuine "shon."

het station /ət staːˈʃɔn/

End-stressed, as the French source demands. Dutch keeps this pattern across station, natie, informatie and their relatives — though note that only "-tion" gives "shon," while "-tie" gives "tsee," so the two endings diverge sharply.

Listen: het station

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Sound it out

st The opening s stays a plain sharp hiss. It is only the word's ending that becomes a "sh."

a A long open "aah," unstressed but keeping its full quality rather than reducing to a schwa.

-tion Pronounced "shon," carrying the primary stress. The French-derived ending gives Dutch one of its few genuine "sh" sounds, and the vowel is a short rounded o.

Hear it in a sentence

Het station is dichtbij.

The train station is nearby.

Listen: Het station is dichtbij.

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"Het station is dichtbij" ends on a compound adverb built from "dicht" and "bij," whose cht cluster gives the sentence a hard finish after the soft "sh" of the noun. The reduced article opens it almost inaudibly.

Where English speakers slip

English speakers front-stress it as "STA-tion" and, having learned that Dutch has no "sh," sometimes over-correct into "stah-see-ON." This particular ending really is a "sh," imported wholesale from French. The stress goes on the end, and the opening s stays a plain hiss.