Dutch · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "hij" in Dutch?

Q: How do you pronounce hij in Dutch?

hij is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /ɦɛi/. It means “he.” hay — soft voiced h plus the ij diphthong. It sounds like English "hay," not "high."

hay — soft voiced h plus the ij diphthong. It sounds like English "hay," not "high."

hij /ɦɛi/

Unusually for a pronoun, this one has no separate weak form in writing — but speech reduces it anyway, often to "-ie" attached to the verb, as in "heeft-ie." In its full written form it takes a light beat at most, yielding the peak to the verb.

Listen: hij

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Sound it out

h Voiced and breathy, made with the vocal cords already humming. English h at the start of "hi" is a sharp puff; this is much gentler.

ij Begins near the vowel of "bed" and climbs toward "ee." Northern speakers start it noticeably low, which is what gives the Dutch pronoun its distinctive colour.

Hear it in a sentence

Hij is mijn broer.

He is my brother.

Listen: Hij is mijn broer.

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"Hij is mijn broer" strings two ij-diphthongs together, in "hij" and "mijn," which makes the sentence a compact drill for the sound. The possessive "mijn" is unstressed here while "broer" takes the peak, so the two diphthongs are pronounced at quite different volumes.

Where English speakers slip

English speakers read h-i-j and produce "high," borrowing the wide-open diphthong of "my." Dutch ij starts mid-front, around "eh," and never opens that far. Say "hay" and then lower the starting point slightly. The h also gets the full English aspiration when it should be soft enough to almost merge with the vowel.