Dutch · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "nee" in Dutch?

Q: How do you pronounce nee in Dutch?

nee is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /neː/. It means “no.” Like English "nay," but with the vowel held longer and without sliding into a "y" at the end.

Like English "nay," but with the vowel held longer and without sliding into a "y" at the end.

nee /neː/

Whatever emphasis the sentence has to hand tends to land here, since "nee" is usually the informational centre of its utterance. Dutch speakers stretch the long ee for emphasis rather than raising the pitch, so a firm refusal is a longer "neeee," not a louder one.

Listen: nee

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Sound it out

n A straightforward n with the tongue tip on the ridge behind the teeth, exactly as in English "no."

ee The doubled e spells a long, tense vowel roughly like the "e" in "they" but purer — Dutch keeps the tongue steady where English lets it drift upward into a glide.

Hear it in a sentence

Nee, dank je.

No, thank you.

Listen: Nee, dank je.

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"Nee, dank je" pairs the refusal with a softening thank-you, the standard polite decline. The two words are separated by a real pause in speech, so the long ee gets to finish before the d of "dank" begins — running them together sounds curt.

Where English speakers slip

The common error is the English diphthong: "nay" in English actually travels from an e-sound toward an ee-sound, ending near "neigh-ee." Dutch ee has only a very slight glide at the end and mostly holds one steady vowel position. Some learners also read "nee" as the English word "nee" (as in née) with a short "knee" vowel; the Dutch vowel is lower and longer than that.