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Dutch non standard pronunciations

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tristano
Tetraglot
Senior Member
Netherlands
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Speaks: Italian*, Spanish, French, English
Studies: Dutch

 
 Message 1 of 16
28 October 2014 at 12:36pm | IP Logged 
Hello,
one of the several issues that I have with Dutch regards non standard pronunciation,
that seems to be quite widespread in The Netherlands.
I noticed also a little bit of diglossia.
For example I was playing with lyricstraining and I had hard times with three really
simple words:

- ik, pronounced 'k, understood by me '[c|d|t|q|k|dt]
- het, pronounced 't, understood by me exactly in the same way of ik
- rode. that was hilarious, because it was written rode but pronounced rooie. that
reminds me that I heard word as simple as goedenavond pronounced goede avond,
gooienavond, gooie avond, goed avond and only God knows in which other ways (but it is
really familiar to me and easy to understand from the context).
Sometimes it seems like that they cut entire part of sentences.
Are there other particular nonstandard pronunciations? I remember an assimil lesson
that was completely unintelligible. I have the impression that the Dutch hate the
letter 'd'.

Can someone give me insights on how to exit from this labyrinth?

(I have a thing that cheers me up a bit: "at least is better than Danish")
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tarvos
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 Message 2 of 16
28 October 2014 at 3:00pm | IP Logged 
None of these pronunciations are non-standard. They are colloquial and produced by
nearly everybody. It just means you've actually been talking to people. In fact if I
would pronounce the "d" in the word rode everyone would mark it as stuffy and formal.

The letter D in Dutch is often dropped in intervocalic position (between two vowels).
Usually it softens to a j, sometimes it's left out altogether. It's the reason why
Dutch writes broer (from old Dutch broeder), weer ("weder"), and so on. You can find
these old forms in old expressions but people don't talk that way anymore.

In Dutch, final -n is often dropped, many people pronounce initial "v" as "f", g has a
fair few variants, in the north you will often hear a lack of voiced consonants (only
b and d are retained). In some places the r is rolled, in other places it is guttural
like in French. Vowels change quality in dialect very often.


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tristano
Tetraglot
Senior Member
Netherlands
Joined 4048 days ago

905 posts - 1262 votes 
Speaks: Italian*, Spanish, French, English
Studies: Dutch

 
 Message 3 of 16
28 October 2014 at 5:24pm | IP Logged 
Ok, thank you very much for the clarifications.
That makes things quite difficult for the learners. At least, to me. Very often I
cannot recognize words that I'm able to write instead.

I'm quite used to the dropped final 'n' when a word ends with -en, while I have much
more problems with the d and the guttural r. I have less problems with the vowels,
maybe because I cannot hear the differences.


But then, when it comes to talk it is quite difficult to me. Should I always drop the
n after -en? Is the v always pronounced 'f'? Can I use the Italian 'r' instead of the
French 'r' that I find appropriate in French but weird in Dutch? Can I pronounce 'g'
and 'ch' always in the same way? And the d should I always drop when talking
informally but pronounce it 'd' when talking with an older person or my boss?

How a foreigner is espected to talk?
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tarvos
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 Message 4 of 16
28 October 2014 at 6:17pm | IP Logged 
tristano wrote:
Ok, thank you very much for the clarifications.
That makes things quite difficult for the learners. At least, to me. Very often I
cannot recognize words that I'm able to write instead.

I'm quite used to the dropped final 'n' when a word ends with -en, while I have much
more problems with the d and the guttural r. I have less problems with the vowels,
maybe because I cannot hear the differences.


You live in the Hague, the guttural r is much more common there. About half the
population of the Netherlands, plus Belgium, rolls the r like in Italian :)


Quote:
But then, when it comes to talk it is quite difficult to me. Should I always
drop the n after -en? Is the v always pronounced 'f'? Can I use the Italian 'r'
instead of the French 'r' that I find appropriate in French but weird in Dutch? Can I
pronounce 'g' and 'ch' always in the same way? And the d should I always drop when
talking informally but pronounce it 'd' when talking with an older person or my boss?


V becomes f word-initially. V remains v intervocalically. V is not found word-finally.
If you go below the rivers then v is always v, no matter who you talk to.

Yes, you can use the Italian r. I actually recommend that, it's better than the
guttural r in my opinion (and the original pronunciation to boot). I personally do not
usually do this but that is because I was born in an area where the French r is
common. R, word-finally, drops off the word or becomes an English r in the Netherlands
btw (excepting Limburg where it's guttural always).

G and CH are the same when I pronounce them. Many people don't distinguish between
voiced and voiceless sounds (except for b and d). Pronouncing them the same is
completely normal and will not lead to trouble. You may find people that don't, but
they are almost always southerners and their g sounds are very soft and not guttural
or even velar.

D is often already dropped in the cases where it was intervocalic. In cases where the
conjugation adds an e and d becomes intervocalic, always pronounce a j or w sound
instead depending on the vowel in front. "Oude - ouwe". Maybe if you're talking to
very old people or very formal people, you may have to keep the d, but I rarely do.
Maybe if I was holding a speech. And even then I doubt it.

Drop the -n. It's normal. Only pronounce it if you're really emphasizing something.

By the way, in Afrikaans all of this has actually already been simplified :)They have
noted all these changes in the orthography already. Which makes Afrikaans really easy.


Quote:
How a foreigner is espected to talk?


Like a foreigner. The Dutch are very used to accented Dutch and we've probably heard
every possible accent you can think of already, given that everyone here has some sort
of accent anyways. Having a slight accent isn't an issue. Often I find slightly
foreign accents much easier to understand than some native accents that are just very
strong dialect. Try talking to Limbourgians...
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Cabaire
Senior Member
Germany
Joined 5600 days ago

725 posts - 1352 votes 

 
 Message 5 of 16
29 October 2014 at 3:31pm | IP Logged 
The intervocalic d is (according to Pierre Brachin's book "Die niederländische Sprache)often a question of register.

You say "een rooie doek", but "het rode Kruis", "een dooie mus", but "dodenherdenking". Verkouden instead of verkouwe would sound ridiculous, ophouden is more usual, onophoudelijk the only possible form. You can say verraje and verrajer, but verraderlijk is never verrajerlijk.
Even educated people uses geleje, snije and rije when speaking, but laajen, bloeien and bieje are more vulgar.

Writing is more conservative, but you see both meelij and medelijden, moe and moede, but more often voeren and kleren that voederen and klederen. Breien and gedwee have won.

In "de goie ouwe tijd" you still said "goede oude tijd", but now you have quite a mess.
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tarvos
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 Message 6 of 16
29 October 2014 at 3:41pm | IP Logged 
Klederen I have never seen. Voederen is something you do with animals.

Een dooie mus is actually a fixed expression "iemand blij maken met een dooie mus"
which
means to make someone happy for nothing.

Hou op is way more common than Houd op.

I wouldn't consider those examples vulgar but very dialectical. I can see grandparents
use them. Laait ge effe d'n auto in/vol or something sounds like something my family
would
say.



Edited by tarvos on 29 October 2014 at 3:46pm

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Cabaire
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Germany
Joined 5600 days ago

725 posts - 1352 votes 

 
 Message 7 of 16
29 October 2014 at 6:22pm | IP Logged 
Klederen seems to be a really old form, it is used for example in the Staten Vertaling, the Dutch Bible, first published in 1637: Een ieder ook, die zijn leger zal aanroeren, zal zijn klederen wassen, en zich met water baden, en zal onrein zijn tot aan den avond (Leviticus)
This seems to indicate, that the weakening of intervocalic d began many centuries ago.
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tarvos
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 Message 8 of 16
29 October 2014 at 6:44pm | IP Logged 
Well in that case it's no wonder I don't know it ;)


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