Common Phrases 1

Greetings throughout the day

As in English, Dutch has many different ways of greeting others. The most common one,
which you can use all day, is Hallo.

An easy way of greeting people throughout the day, is to say the time of day and add goede-
"good" in front of it - just like in English. If the time of day starts with a vowel, you squish an -
n- in between (an exception being "goedendag"). As follows:

Time of day Greeting

Morgen (morning) Goedemorgen

Middag (midday) Goedemiddag

Avond (evening) Goedenavond

Nacht (night) Goedenacht

Dag (day) Goedendag

More pronunciation
Besides the letters of the alphabet, Dutch has a lot of combinations of letters that have their
own sound. The most common ones are discussed below.

Dutch IPA, Notes

ch [ɣ] / [x], the infamous Dutch sound (again).

It sounds a bit like loch (Scottish English).
[ʃ] in loanwords, like chocolade and China.
Can also sound like [tʃ], like in check.

ng [ŋ], like in long

nj [ɲ], like the Spanish ñ

nk [ŋk], the ng sound followed by a k

Dutch IPA, Notes
Common Phrases 1

sch [sɣ] / [sx] at the beginning of words. At the

end of a word, it sounds like [s]

tie [tsi], at the end of words

tj [c], is followed by an e, sounds like cheer

au, ou [ʌu], like in out

ei, ij [ɛi], roughly like may

eu [øː], roughly like earth or bird

oe [u], like boot

ui [œy], tricky. Roughly like house (Scottish

English)