Dutch · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "tot ziens" in Dutch?

Q: How do you pronounce tot ziens in Dutch?

tot ziens is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /tɔt ˈsins/. It means “goodbye.” tot SEENSS — the z is pronounced much like an s in standard Dutch, and "ziens" carries the stress.

tot SEENSS — the z is pronounced much like an s in standard Dutch, and "ziens" carries the stress.

tot ziens /tɔt ˈsins/

Two words, one phrase: "tot" is a light preposition and "ziens" takes the whole melodic peak. That imbalance is what makes the farewell sound idiomatic — flat, evenly-weighted "TOT ZIENS" sounds like a phrasebook being read aloud.

Listen: tot ziens

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Sound it out

tot Short "o" as in British "hot," bracketed by two unaspirated t's. The final t links straight into the next word with no gap.

z In standard northern Dutch this word-initial z has lost most of its buzz and lands close to a plain s. Start it as a hiss and let voicing creep in only at the end, rather than giving it the full English "zoo" hum.

ie The long "ee" of "seen." This digraph is Dutch's dedicated spelling for that vowel, so it never breaks into two sounds.

ns A tidy n-plus-s cluster, both sounds fully audible. Do not let the n nasalize the vowel the way French would.

Hear it in a sentence

Tot ziens, meneer!

Goodbye, sir!

Listen: Tot ziens, meneer!

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"Tot ziens, meneer!" pairs the phrase with a formal address, which is where this farewell lives — it is noticeably more polite than "doei." The final s of "ziens" and the m of "meneer" meet across the comma, so leave a small breath there rather than smearing them together.

Where English speakers slip

Seeing z, English speakers reach for the loud voiced buzz of "zebra" and produce "ZEENZ" with a voiced ending too. Standard Dutch does the opposite at both edges: initial z is barely voiced, and the final s stays a clean hiss. The other frequent slip is treating "tot" as a stressed word, which gives the greeting an oddly stomping rhythm.