Dutch · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "naast" in Dutch?

Q: How do you pronounce naast in Dutch?

naast is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /naːst/. It means “next to.” nahst — long open "aah," plain s, and a clean t. Rhymes with nothing in English.

nahst — long open "aah," plain s, and a clean t. Rhymes with nothing in English.

naast /naːst/

A fairly long beat, since the vowel takes real time before the cluster closes it. As a preposition it usually stays unstressed in a sentence, but its length keeps it clearly audible even without an accent.

Listen: naast

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

Sound it out

n A standard n to begin with — the one sound in this word that transfers straight from English.

aa Hold it before the cluster closes in. Shortened, the word slides toward a non-existent "nast."

st A clean hissing s into an unaspirated t, both released together. No "sht" — Dutch keeps the s sharp everywhere, including at the end of a word.

Hear it in a sentence

Ik zit naast het raam.

I'm sitting next to the window.

Listen: Ik zit naast het raam.

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

"Ik zit naast het raam" again uses "zitten" as the posture verb, and "raam" at the end gives you another long open "aah" to match the one in "naast." The reduced "het" between them nearly vanishes, so the sentence has two long vowels in close succession.

Where English speakers slip

Learners shorten the vowel toward "nast," losing the length that makes the word recognisable. Others import a German-style "sht" at the end, which Dutch does not use. And "naast" is easily confused with "naar," which shares its opening and its long vowel but means "to" rather than "next to."