Dutch · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "hier" in Dutch?

heer — soft voiced h, a long "ee," and a very light r on the end.

hier /ɦir/

As a location word this often carries the sentence's focus — "kom HIER" puts the whole point on it. Its long vowel gives it enough substance to bear that weight without needing extra volume.

Listen: hier

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Sound it out

h Voiced and breathy, the vocal cords already humming as the word starts.

ie Bright and steady, and it must survive the r that follows — do not let the consonant pull it backwards.

r So light after a long vowel that many speakers reduce it to almost nothing. Do not let it colour the "ee" in front of it.

Hear it in a sentence

Kom hier.

Come here.

Listen: Kom hier.

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"Kom hier" is a bare imperative: the verb stem alone, no pronoun, and the adverb after it. Dutch imperatives are formed by stripping the infinitive back to its stem, which makes them shorter and blunter than the English equivalent.

Where English speakers slip

The English "here" and "hear" both supply a diphthongised vowel and a heavy r that dominates the syllable. Dutch keeps a pure long "ee" and lets the r be an afterthought. Over-aspirating the h is the other habit — Dutch h is voiced and soft enough to nearly merge with the vowel.