Dutch · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "wij" in Dutch?

Q: How do you pronounce wij in Dutch?

wij is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /ʋɛi/. It means “we.” vay — soft lip-teeth w plus the ij diphthong. Not the English "why."

vay — soft lip-teeth w plus the ij diphthong. Not the English "why."

wij /ʋɛi/

The strong form of "we," standing opposite the reduced "we" that Dutch uses by default. Because it is emphatic by design, it takes a real beat and often opens the sentence with the melodic high point already in place.

Listen: wij

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Sound it out

w Lower lip drifting toward the upper teeth with only light friction. It is neither the rounded English w nor the full German v; think of a v with the pressure taken off.

ij Rises from a mid-front "eh" toward "ee." Combined with the labiodental w, the word ends up sounding closer to "vay" than to anything an English reader would predict from the spelling.

Hear it in a sentence

Wij zijn goede vrienden.

We are good friends.

Listen: Wij zijn goede vrienden.

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"Wij zijn goede vrienden" puts the emphatic pronoun first and follows with the plural verb "zijn." The adjective takes the -e ending before a plural noun, so "goede" adds an unstressed schwa syllable and the sentence flows down toward VRIEN-den.

Where English speakers slip

Almost every beginner says "why," importing both the rounded English w and the open diphthong. Fix the w by lifting the lower lip to the teeth, and fix the vowel by starting it around "eh." A useful check: "wij" and "hij" should rhyme perfectly, and if yours sound like "why" and "hay," something has gone wrong.