Hear the words English speakers stumble on — Scheveningen, Gouda, Van Gogh, gezellig — with a 'sounds like' and a tip for each.
a seaside district of The Hague
The sch- is s + a guttural g (like a throat-clear), not 'sh'. It was famously used to spot non-native speakers in WWII.
a city (and the cheese)
The g is a hard guttural 'kh' from the throat — never the English 'g' in 'good'.
the painter Vincent van Gogh
In Dutch it's 'van KHOKH' with two guttural g's — not 'van GO' (US) or 'van GOFF' (UK).
a central Dutch city
The -cht is a guttural 'kh' + t. The u sounds like the 'u' in 'put'.
cosy / convivial (untranslatable)
Guttural g at both ends; the middle is stressed.
a caramel syrup waffle
oo = long 'oh'; the w is soft (v-ish).
onion
The ui vowel has no English match — round your lips and glide from 'ow' to 'ur'.
girl
ei = 'eye'; sje = 'shuh'.
a common boy's name
ij = 'eye', so it rhymes with English 'nine'.
chocolate sprinkles for bread
Two guttural g's — one in the middle, one at the end.
an old city in the east
ij sounds like English 'eye'; the g is the guttural 'kh'.
the beer brand
In Dutch the ei = 'eye', so it's 'HY-nuh-ken', not 'HINE-uh-ken'.
The guttural g and ch, the sch cluster and the ui vowel have no English equivalent. Every entry tells you exactly how to shape them.
Press play on any word — city, name or food — and hear it spoken by a Dutch voice, at full speed or slowed to 0.5×.
Van Gogh → 'van KHOKH'. Scheveningen → 'SKHAY-vuh-ning-uh'. An English respelling so you can read it before you hear it.
The Dutch g (and the ch) is a guttural sound made at the back of the throat, like clearing your throat gently — similar to the 'ch' in the Scottish 'loch' or the German 'Bach'. It is never the English 'g' in 'good'. In the south of the Netherlands and in Belgium it's softer; in the west (Holland) it's harsher. We write it as 'kh' in the respellings.
In Dutch it's roughly 'van KHOKH' — both g's are the guttural throat sound, and the final -gh is the same. It is not 'van GO' (as Americans often say) or 'van GOFF' (as the British say). Listen to it on the tool and copy the two throaty g's.
It stacks two difficult things: the sch- cluster (an 's' immediately followed by the guttural g, not an English 'sh') and several syllables. It's roughly 'SKHAY-vuh-ning-uh'. During WWII it was reportedly used as a shibboleth — a word to tell Dutch speakers from German ones, because non-natives couldn't say the sch- correctly.
The ui (as in ui = onion, or huis = house) has no English equivalent. Round your lips as if to say 'oo', then glide toward 'ur' — the result is somewhere between 'ow' and 'ur'. It's one of the 71 words in this guide, so you can hear it and practise it directly.