Dutch · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "vandaag" in Dutch?

Q: How do you pronounce vandaag in Dutch?

vandaag is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /vɑnˈdaːx/. It means “today.” vun-DAAKH — stress on the second syllable, ending in the harsh Dutch fricative.

vun-DAAKH — stress on the second syllable, ending in the harsh Dutch fricative.

vandaag /vɑnˈdaːx/

The beat falls on the second syllable, which is unusual for a Dutch word and betrays the compound's origin as "van dag." The same shape shows up in "vanavond" and "vanmorgen," so once you know the pattern the whole family becomes predictable.

Listen: vandaag

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Sound it out

van- An unstressed opening syllable: soft v and a short open "ah," both passing quickly. This is the preposition "van" fused onto the front of "dag."

d Voiced, released without aspiration, opening the stressed syllable.

aa Roughly twice as long as the a in the unstressed first syllable, which is exactly how the stress makes itself heard.

g A voiceless rasp finishing the word. Because it is friction rather than a stop, you can hold it for as long as your breath allows.

Hear it in a sentence

Het regent vandaag.

It's raining today.

Listen: Het regent vandaag.

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"Het regent vandaag" ends on the time word, and "regent" beforehand has first-syllable stress with a schwa ending. So the sentence starts front-heavy and finishes with a late, strong beat — exactly the reverse of the usual Dutch contour.

Where English speakers slip

Front-stressing this word — "VAN-daag" — is the standard error, driven by the general Dutch habit. It is end-stressed. The final g is the second problem: rendered as an English hard g it removes the word's most distinctive sound. And the long aa should be genuinely long, roughly twice the a in the first syllable.