Dutch · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "willen" in Dutch?

Q: How do you pronounce willen in Dutch?

willen is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /ˈʋɪlə(n)/. It means “to want.” VIL-uh — soft lip-teeth w, short tight i, and the final n usually gone.

VIL-uh — soft lip-teeth w, short tight i, and the final n usually gone.

willen /ˈʋɪlə(n)/

Front-stressed like all plain infinitives, but this one is worth hearing alongside its conjugated forms: "wil" is a single stressed syllable, "willen" adds a weak one, and the stressed part is identical in both. Dutch conjugation adds material at the end and leaves the beat undisturbed.

Listen: willen

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Sound it out

w The lip rises toward the teeth without ever sealing, and the lips stay spread. English speakers who round them make the whole verb sound wrong from its first instant.

i The vowel of English "will" — one of the rare places where the cognate hands you the right sound for free.

ll A single bright l. The doubling is spelling-only, and the tongue tip stays forward rather than pulling back into a dark English l.

en Identical in form to the plural present tense, so "wij willen" and the bare infinitive sound exactly alike. Context, not sound, tells them apart.

Hear it in a sentence

Ik wil een ijsje.

I want an ice cream.

Listen: Ik wil een ijsje.

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"Ik wil een ijsje" uses the stem "wil" and needs no infinitive at all, since the object is a noun. The diminutive "ijsje" packs the ij diphthong and a "sh"-like sj together, so the sentence's real challenge is the last word rather than the verb.

Where English speakers slip

The English "will" is so close in sound and meaning that learners simply say it, complete with the rounded English w. That w is the tell. The meaning also drifts: Dutch "willen" means "to want," not "will" as a future marker, so "ik wil gaan" is "I want to go" and never "I will go."