The Dutch alphabet uses the same 26 letters as English. This is a great head start. While the letters look familiar, their names and sounds can be quite different. Knowing the names of the letters helps with spelling things out loud.

You might also see ij, which is sometimes treated like a single letter and often written as a ligature. When sorting alphabetically, it's usually handled as i followed by j.

Dutch vowels come in two main flavors: short and long. The spelling rules tell you which one to use. A single vowel in a closed syllable (one that ends in a consonant) is usually short.

Long vowels appear in a few key situations. A single vowel in an open syllable (one that ends in that vowel) is long. A double vowel is always long.

Many Dutch consonants sound just like their English counterparts. But a few are unique and give the language its characteristic sound. Mastering these will make your pronunciation much more authentic.

The Dutch 'r' is another key sound. It can be rolled with the tip of the tongue, like in Spanish, or pronounced as a guttural 'r' in the back of the throat, similar to French. Both are common and widely understood.

Dutch loves to combine letters to create new sounds. These are called diphthongs (vowel combinations) and digraphs (any two letters representing one sound). Learning to spot them is key.

The combinations ei and ij sound exactly the same. There's no rule for when to use which one, so they simply have to be memorized with each word.

Let's see how well you've picked up these new sounds.

Getting comfortable with these sounds is the first major step. The more you listen to native speakers, the more natural these pronunciations will become.