Spelling
This local copy which is for quick reference
only doesn't contain sound files. If you want listen pronouncuiation of
all listed words you should access original page at http://www.blue.demon.nl/dutch/spelling.htm
Well, Dutch has all the usual letters of the alphabet, plus one.
That is: abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz and ÿ (ij)
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Yep, that new letter "ÿ" is very hard to enter on a normal QWERTY
keyboard.
That's why we normally use "ij" (an "i" and an "j") in typed documents
(in handwritten documents usually the "ÿ" is used).
So "ij" actually counts as one letter in Dutch (we even have it in
Scrabble :-).
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Of course, we also have the i and j as separate letters, but I can't
come up with a word in which j follows i and isn't used as an "ij". So
whenever you see "ij" in a word it's the ÿ.
For example: "hij" {he}, "IJsselmeer" (name of a lake).
The capital "ij" is written as "IJ"; so both letters are capitalized.
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The "y" is like in English, sometimes vowel, and sometimes a consonant.
It is only used in words derived from a foreign language, like Greek,
e.g. "hypnose" {hypnosis} or "yoghurt" {yogurt}.
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As in most languages the first character of a sentence starts with
a capital (well almost all of the time).
Also names of persons, geographical names start with a capital. Nouns
don't normally start with a capital (it does so in the German language
for instance).
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Sentences end with a "."
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The Dutch language has many diphthongs (two or more vowels forming
one sound together). They are:
"aa", "aai", "au", "ee", "eeu", "ei", "eu", "ie", "ieu", "oe", "oei",
"oi", "oo", "ooi", "ou", "ui", "uu"
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Dutch also has some sorta consonant diphthongs. They are:
"ch", "ng", "sch"
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Why have two things for the same sound? In the old times (before 1920)
the "g" and the "ch" sounded different, this also is valid for other letters
and diphthong, like "ij" and "ei" which have the same sound. We call "ij"
'long' and "ei" short.
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