Dutch · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "horen" in Dutch?

Q: How do you pronounce horen in Dutch?

horen is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /ˈɦoːrə(n)/. It means “to hear.” HOH-ruh — soft voiced h, long pure "oh," and a light r before the reduced ending.

HOH-ruh — soft voiced h, long pure "oh," and a light r before the reduced ending.

horen /ˈɦoːrə(n)/

First-syllable stress, and this verb is a useful contrast with "horen" versus "hoeren" — a single vowel apart, with very different meanings. The stress placement is identical, so length and quality of that stressed vowel are doing all the distinguishing work.

Listen: horen

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Sound it out

h Voiced and breathy, produced with the vocal cords already vibrating. It should feel like a sigh rather than a puff.

o Long and steady "oh," lengthened by the open syllable. English "hoar" glides toward "oo" at the end; Dutch holds still.

r A light tap or gentle back scrape between the two vowels, not the curled English r that would colour the vowel before it.

en Two unstressed sounds in a row, r then schwa, which is why the word seems to fade out rather than end.

Hear it in a sentence

Ik hoor niets.

I don't hear anything.

Listen: Ik hoor niets.

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"Ik hoor niets" uses the stem and pairs it with "niets," the negative pronoun, rather than the negator "niet" — Dutch says "I hear nothing" rather than "I don't hear anything." The two words end in similar consonant clusters, giving the short sentence a tidy symmetry.

Where English speakers slip

The English r is the main damage: an American "hore-en" bends the vowel and blurs the syllable boundary. Keep the "oh" pure and add a light r afterward. Learners also confuse "horen" with "behoren" and with the phrase "bij elkaar horen"; the base verb alone means simply to hear.