Dutch · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "zeker" in Dutch?

Q: How do you pronounce zeker in Dutch?

zeker is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /ˈzeːkər/. It means “sure / certain.” ZAY-kur — barely-voiced z, long "ay" under the stress, and a weak second syllable.

ZAY-kur — barely-voiced z, long "ay" under the stress, and a weak second syllable.

zeker /ˈzeːkər/

Weight at the front, with the second syllable reduced to almost nothing. The pattern repeats across a large family of Dutch words ending in -er — lekker, water, beter — where the ending is always weightless and the r nearly inaudible.

Listen: zeker

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Sound it out

z Given only a trace of voicing at the start, as northern Dutch does with every word-initial z.

ee Stretched by the doubled letter and carrying the beat — a mid-front vowel with no movement in it.

k Unaspirated, released quietly between the two syllables.

er An unstressed ending: schwa plus a very light r, often barely more than "-uh" in casual speech.

Hear it in a sentence

Ik ben er zeker van.

I'm sure about it.

Listen: Ik ben er zeker van.

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"Ik ben er zeker van" uses the pronominal adverb "er ... van," splitting the preposition away from its object. That construction has no English parallel — you cannot say "ik ben zeker van het" — and it is one of the genuinely hard corners of Dutch grammar.

Where English speakers slip

The -er ending gets a full American r, turning "ZAY-kur" into something with the r dominating the syllable. Dutch keeps it faint. Learners also over-buzz the initial z and shorten the long vowel. Grammatically, forgetting the "er" in the fixed phrase is the more consequential error.