Dutch · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "samen" in Dutch?

Q: How do you pronounce samen in Dutch?

samen is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /ˈsaːmə(n)/. It means “together.” SAH-muh — long open "aah" under the stress, and the final n dropped in speech.

SAH-muh — long open "aah" under the stress, and the final n dropped in speech.

samen /ˈsaːmə(n)/

Weight at the front with the second syllable near-empty, the standard shape for a native two-syllable Dutch word. As a separable prefix in "samenwerken" it keeps that accent, which is why the prefix outranks the verb.

Listen: samen

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Sound it out

s A plain hissing s, one of the few Dutch consonants that needs no adjustment from English at all.

a Long and open, stretched because the syllable ends right after it. Give it real duration — it holds the whole beat.

m Lips together, bridging the stressed syllable into the weak one.

en The weak ending, reduced to a schwa. With the m before it and the n gone, the syllable is barely more than a hum.

Hear it in a sentence

Laten we samen gaan.

Let's go together.

Listen: Laten we samen gaan.

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"Laten we samen gaan" uses "laten we" for the first-person plural imperative, Dutch's equivalent of "let's." The infinitive "gaan" lands at the end, so the adverb sits in the middle where it is easy to under-pronounce.

Where English speakers slip

The long vowel gets shortened toward the vowel of English "sam," and the ending picks up a full n. Both flatten the word. Learners also confuse "samen" with "bij elkaar": "samen" means together in the sense of jointly doing something, and it cannot simply replace every English "together."