How to Pronounce the Dutch 'g'

Last Updated: July 1, 2021

Like the Japanese 'r' the Dutch 'g' is a very hard sound to make for people not speaking Dutch.

Steps

1
Listen to the sound so you know when you have it right.
2
Get the air moving. The Dutch 'g' is a "fricative", meaning that the air is moving past a partly constricted opening in your mouth. Other examples of fricatives in English are "f" as in "fee", "s" as in "hiss" and "th" as in "thistle".

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3
Don't let your vocal chords vibrate. This is a voiceless sound. For an example of voiced versus voiceless sounds, pronounce the word "zap" in English. The 'z' is voiced. Then pronounce the word "sap". The "s" is unvoiced. All the fricatives mentioned in the previous step are voiceless, too.
4
Make the sound by pressing the tongue against the roof of the mouth at the point where the uvula hangs down (point 9 on the chart). The sound is similar to the 'ch' in 'loch', but to the Dutch that still sounds too much like a 'k' as in 'cat', because it is made against the "velum" (point 8 on the chart), rather than the uvula. The Dutch sound is also found in German (e.g. in "Dach" = "roof")[1]
- To pronounce the 'g' like a native Dutch speaker, you should try make a sound as if you were gargling. It may sound kind of gross, but that is generally how it's pronounced.
5
Try saying the word 'gek' which means 'crazy'. (See the sources section for a link to the audio.) The '-ek' part is pronounced exactly the same as the '-eck' part in 'check', so you would get a short gurgling sound followed by 'eck'. Or if you think the 'ch' in 'loch' works better for you it would be 'ch-eck'.
6
Practice. This is not a usual phoneme in English, so practice using it. You'll get used to it after a while, and be able to produce it easily.

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Community Q&A

Question

How would I pronounce the Dutch name Wikje?

Community Answer

Wik like sick, j like y as in yogurt, e like uh or ah.
Question

Why do the spelling and pronunciation of colors change, depending on what is being referenced? For example, a car or a horse?

Community Answer

Dutch has 2 articles for "the", namely "de" and "het". When the article for a word is "de", all adjectives get an "e" added and changed accordingly (geel - gele, dom - domme, etc.). When the article is "het", the adjective is normal when you use "een" (a), "één" (1) or "geen" (not a). Het bruine paard / een bruin paard / 1 bruin paard / geen bruin paard (the brown horse / a brown horse / 1 brown horse / no brown horse). Note: There's a lot of exceptions; for example, when pointing at something related to a function, you might keep the normal adjective - een belangrijke man (an important man), een belangrijk man (same).
Question

Would I pronounce the S in the name Sjoerd?

Community Answer

The name Sjoerd is pronounced: sj = sh like shoe, oe = oo like book, rd = rd like bird (but in some Dutch dialects the r is 'rolled').

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Warnings

You won't come to any harm from practicing this sound.

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References

[1] Kohler, K, "German", in "Handbook of the International Phonetic Association", Cambridge UK, 1999, pp.86-89.
Hear the word 'goedemorgen' (meaning good morning) pronounced by a native speaker of Dutch.
Listen to the word 'gek'.
Hear a voiceless uvular fricative by itself.

About This Article

wikiHow is a “wiki,” similar to Wikipedia, which means that many of our articles are co-written by multiple authors. To create this article, 20 people, some anonymous, worked to edit and improve it over time. This article has been viewed 61,604 times.

57 votes - 84%

Co-authors: 20

Updated: July 1, 2021

Views: 61,604

Categories: World Languages

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