Read a Dutch sign and half the words look familiar. Hear it spoken and you catch yourself thinking: is this English after a few beers, or German with a cold? You are not the first to think that. English speakers have joked about Dutch for centuries, and the joke has a real linguistic story behind it.
Here is why Dutch sounds the way it does, sound by sound.
Why does Dutch look so much like English?
Dutch and English both belong to the West Germanic branch, and both skipped a big sound change that reshaped German between roughly the 6th and 8th centuries. Linguists call it the High German consonant shift. German turned p into pf or f, t into z or s, and k into ch. Dutch did not.
That is why Dutch appel, water and maken sit so close to English apple, water and make, while German has Apfel, Wasser and machen. On paper, Dutch keeps the older consonants that English kept too.
Where does the famous Dutch “g” come from?
In the north of the Netherlands, the letters g and ch are pronounced far back in the throat, as a rough fricative. English lost that sound long ago (the gh in night and laugh used to be pronounced), so to English ears it sounds like clearing your throat.
Go south, to Limburg, Brabant or Flanders, and you hear the “soft g”, which is much gentler. So the harsh Dutch you hear on TV is mostly a northern and western accent, not the whole language.
Book tip
Short Stories in Dutch for Beginners by Olly Richards
If you want your ear to get used to Dutch, graded stories with vocabulary lists are the easiest way in. You read at your level and the strange sounds start to feel normal.
Which vowels make Dutch sound strange?
Dutch has vowel combinations that English simply does not have. The ui in huis (house) is a rounded diphthong that learners often mangle. The eu in neus (nose) is close to the French vowel in peu. And ij and ei sound the same, roughly like English “eye” with the mouth a bit more closed.
Put those vowels next to German-style throat sounds and English-looking words, and you get the mix that makes people call Dutch “drunk English”.
What else makes Dutch sound unusual?
Dutch devoices consonants at the end of a word, so hond (dog) ends in a t sound. It loves diminutives: a kopje is a small cup, a biertje a small beer, and people use them all day long. And the cluster sch at the start of a word is pronounced s plus that throat sound, which is why the seaside town Scheveningen trips up almost every foreigner.
What does this have to do with Frisian?
Here is the twist most people miss: the Netherlands has a second language, Frisian, spoken mainly in the province of Friesland. Frisian is not a Dutch dialect. It developed on its own and in some everyday words it sits closer to English than Dutch does. Dutch has kaas and kerk, Frisian has tsiis and tsjerke, English has cheese and church.
If Dutch already fascinates you, Frisian is the next rabbit hole. Read how Frisian differs from Dutch, or start with our free beginner lessons.
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