Dutch · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "lopen" in Dutch?

Q: How do you pronounce lopen in Dutch?

lopen is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /ˈloːpə(n)/. It means “to walk.” LOH-puh — bright l, long steady "oh," and the final n dropped.

LOH-puh — bright l, long steady "oh," and the final n dropped.

lopen /ˈloːpə(n)/

First syllable, with the single p after the vowel signalling that the o is long. Spell it "loppen" and the vowel would shorten — this one-consonant-versus-two rule governs the rhythm of virtually every Dutch verb and is worth internalising as a reading habit.

Listen: lopen

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

Sound it out

l A clear front l, tongue tip up. Keeping it bright is what stops the word from sounding like English "lope."

o Long and pure "oh," lengthened by the open syllable. English glides toward "oo"; Dutch holds one position.

p Unaspirated between the vowels, released quietly.

en The p and the schwa together take less time than the long o that precedes them, which is a good measure of how lopsided Dutch words are.

Hear it in a sentence

We lopen naar het station.

We're walking to the station.

Listen: We lopen naar het station.

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

"We lopen naar het station" uses "lopen" for walking, and note that "station" is a loanword with final-syllable stress and a French-derived ending pronounced "-sjon." So the sentence pairs a native front-stressed verb with a borrowed end-stressed noun.

Where English speakers slip

English "lope" gives the right general shape but adds a diphthong and an aspirated p. More importantly, "lopen" in the Netherlands means to walk, not to run — Belgian Dutch sometimes uses it for running, and English speakers who assume the cognate meaning end up describing a jog when they mean a stroll.