Does it truly not matter how you pronounce ‘r’ in Dutch? I’m learning Dutch so I’m quite conscious of how I’m pronouncing it because I’ve heard mixed things - some saying I should pronounce it like a ‘tap’, similar to how it’s pronounced in Spanish, other (2024)

• Niederländisch

an English r is ok if you don't mind we'll hear where you come from. dutch r rolls a bit more than in English and much less than in Spanish.

For french with r in throat I wonder how they would pronounce a word like 'krent'.

if you pronounce that word like a dutch the tongue is in position to pronounce each character easy.

in the end you will be understood most of time.

• Englisch (UK)
• Irisch

@gjmbes would you say that you pronounce ‘r’ differently depending on where in a word it is or do you use different variations?

• Niederländisch

@Tadhg27 before consonant my r rolls a bit, at the end of a word my r is not rolling there it's more like a tap with tongue very short.

Dutch from other cities regions can sound different. For instance in the city Leiden the r sounds like an English r.

• Englisch (UK)
• Irisch

@gjmbes Is there a specific accent when it comes to people from Amsterdam? How would they pronounce ‘r’?

• Niederländisch

@Tadhg27 I do not know, this man wrote his PhD on the subject... https://koensebregts.nl

• Niederländisch

Some Dutch speakers on the internet make a big thing of the 'right' pronunciation of the Dutch r. Some older 'teach yourself Dutch' textbooks do the same thing. One wonders why, as there are far more important sounds in Dutch to worry about (and invest time in). Nobody can tell you what the right r is, not even in one and the same word. There are simply too many varieties of the Dutch r.
As long as your r does not resemble a different letter (like the L, for some speakers of Chinese), everybody will be able to understand you and, better still, nobody will notice your r. 😀

• Englisch (UK)
• Irisch

@Elske Thank you! Would you say that even native speakers don’t have a ‘right’ r and they just pronounce it whatever way is easiest, depending on the word?

• Niederländisch

@Tadhg27
Yes, more or less. The place of r in the word determines to a large extent how how r is pronounced. But so does the speaker's geographical background and his or her social position.