Dutch · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "meer" in Dutch?

Q: How do you pronounce meer in Dutch?

meer is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /meːr/. It means “more.” mayr — long "ay" vowel with a light r, not the English "mere" or "mare."

mayr — long "ay" vowel with a light r, not the English "mere" or "mare."

meer /meːr/

This word regularly carries the sentence's main emphasis, because asking for more is usually the point of the utterance. It also builds "meer dan" comparisons, where the element after "dan" steals the peak instead.

Listen: meer

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Sound it out

m An ordinary m, lips closed, voice on.

ee Long tense e, close to "ay" in "day" but held at a single position. Before an r many Dutch speakers open it slightly, giving a vowel that hovers between "ay" and "eh."

r Tapped or softly scraped. It arrives after the vowel is done rather than reshaping it midstream.

Hear it in a sentence

Ik wil meer tijd.

I want more time.

Listen: Ik wil meer tijd.

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"Ik wil meer tijd" needs no article before "tijd," since Dutch treats it as an uncountable mass here. The two long vowels in "meer" and "tijd" give the short sentence a stretched, deliberate rhythm, and the ij of "tijd" contrasts nicely with the pure ee of "meer."

Where English speakers slip

English speakers land on "mere" — a high "ee" vowel plus a heavy r — or on "mare," which is closer but still diphthongised. Dutch wants a steady mid vowel with a feather-light r. Because the r is so weak, the vowel does most of the work, so shortening it makes the word sound like "mer," which is not a Dutch word at all.