Dutch · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "uit" in Dutch?

Q: How do you pronounce uit in Dutch?

uit is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /œyt/. It means “from / out of.” Roughly "owt" but starting from a rounded French-"eu" position — a diphthong English simply does not have.

Roughly "owt" but starting from a rounded French-"eu" position — a diphthong English simply does not have.

uit /œyt/

A heavy single beat — the diphthong takes real time to travel from its rounded start to its glide, so the word occupies more space than its three letters suggest. As a separable prefix ("uitgaan," "uitleggen") it always carries the stress, which is a reliable rule.

Listen: uit

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Sound it out

ui Begin with rounded lips and the tongue mid-front, near the vowel of French "deux," then glide toward a loose "uh" or "ee" while keeping the rounding. The result sounds a bit like "ow" to English ears but is made in a completely different part of the mouth.

t A clean unaspirated stop that closes the diphthong off sharply, giving the word its abrupt feel.

Hear it in a sentence

Ik kom uit Rotterdam.

I come from Rotterdam.

Listen: Ik kom uit Rotterdam.

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"Ik kom uit Rotterdam" is the standard way to state where you are from, and "uit" plus a place name is a fixed pattern. In speech "kom uit" links across the word boundary, so the m runs directly into the rounded diphthong with no pause — a good place to feel the ui without a running start.

Where English speakers slip

English speakers see "ui" and produce the "ow" of "out," which starts wide open and unrounded. The Dutch diphthong starts with the lips already pursed and the tongue forward. That mismatch is the single most recognisable vowel error in learner Dutch, and it turns "uit" into something Dutch ears hear as a foreign approximation even when everything else is right.