Spelling exercises Dutch spelling reform 2006

On the previous page, we discussed the mute e?. There is yet another peculiarity about the e:

the letter 'e' is the only vowel
allowed in duplo at the end of a word (ee).

The reason for this is related to the mute e. Remember the rule of thumb above that a single e at the end of a word is always a mute e. So what if we want a word to end in a long e? The only way to establish this is by writing e in duplo, violating the rule that a syllable never ends in two identical vowels. Examples are: mee (along), thee (tea), wee (pain), zee (sea).

Bear in mind that this only applies to a long e at the end of a word!

Double ee within a word

There are (two) situations where ee forms the end of a syllable within a word.

• Compound word: a word is composed of a word that ends in ee plus another word.

(*)The plural form of a noun that ends in ee

A plural is normally formed by adding -en to the singular.

Note the dieresis.

meelopen, theekop, weeën, zeeën,

All mp3 files on this page:

meelopen, theekop, weeën, zeeën