Pronounciations

[vltukermoore]

Hello, it's V. Just this week I registered to the site and began going over the grammar sections about the alphabet and syllables.
Now, I know the alphabet by heart, and I just began taking notes today about some of the phonemes; however, since English is my mother language I'm having trouble pronouncing some of the sounds because in English, I don't pronounce words with the same sounds as I would in Dutch, e.g.: the letter r or g,most of the phonemes, and some combinations of vowels or consonants.
I know them in my head, but can't seem to properly say them aloud. I don't want to get so far into studying my target language, being able to read, write, and understand Dutch etc., but not have a clue about how to speak it.
Can anyone send me a link or give me any tips on how to make sure I get the write sound and pronounciation? ANYTHING will be appreciated.
Thanks.

[ngonyama]

Wikimedia commons has about 10,000 words http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Categ ... nunciation

I put few drills on wikibooks e.g. http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Dutch/Less ... n_en_Karel

There is some things here on this site too http://www.dutchgrammar.com/en/?n=Audio.HomePage

[vltukermoore]

Thank you so much

[Shazzy]

Hallo
It does come in time Some sounds take a long time to learn you cannot do it all in the first week. Just keep listening and practicing the sounds and eventually you will find they fall into place. I have been learning Dutch for 3 years and can speak Dutch quite well now but I still make prouncation errors because like you say some of the dutch sounds are very difficult. I have a teacher whereby I talk over skype with and she has helped me so much. She lives in Holland but skype is wonderful for Dutch lessons if you cannot find a local teacher.

Don't loose heart learning Dutch is not a five minute job but it's well worth it in the end. After 3 years of study I am taking GCSE this month. (infact next week help )

Groetjes
Shazzy

[font1975]

I would also recommend dutch word of the day. My Dutch isn't good enough to remember most of what he posts. But he does post an audio file for most words/phrases, so I use that to get used to hearing and repeating dutch.

http://www.dwotd.nl/

For me the hardest are the vowels, but especially the "g/ch", "eu", "ui", and little on the "a/aa". (I think UK english may have an edge on the "a/aa" ... almost every dutch guide I read says "a" is pronounced like "bath", which only makes sense, I think, in the UK accent. The U.S. pronunciation for bath is closer to "aa" in Dutch.)

The consonants are mostly pretty close to English. Not that you should ever stop practicing the Dutch pronunciation, but if you slip into an English pronunciation, I think you'll still be understood. They'll just know you're an English speaker

I myself am still learning. I can utter a few sentences and know a basic vocabulary. I was told by one of my co-workers in Holland that I have a slightly German accent in my dutch, which is funny since I don't know a word of German!

[adappel]

Here you can practise your pronounciation:
www.toetsgesprokennederlands.nl
The site is for free.
In some exercises ( still not working on mobile and Apple-devices) you can have your voice recording made in the program.
If this might not be working - please try to record your speech always -.