Dutch phonology is similar to that of other West Germanic languages, especially Afrikaans and West Frisian.
Standard Dutch has two main de facto pronunciation standards: Northern and Belgian. Northern Standard Dutch is the most prestigious accent in the Netherlands. It is associated with high status, education and wealth. Although its speakers seem to be concentrated mainly in the densely-populated Randstad area in the provinces of North Holland, South Holland and Utrecht, it is often impossible to tell where in the country its speakers were born or raised and so it cannot be considered a regional dialect in the Netherlands. Belgian Standard Dutch is used by the vast majority of Flemish journalists and it is sometimes called VRT-Nederlands ("VRT Dutch"; formerly BRT-Nederlands "BRT Dutch"), after VRT, the national public broadcaster for the Flemish Region.
Consonants
The following table shows the consonant phonemes of Dutch:
Obstruents
The glottal stop is not a phoneme because it only occurs optionally in a few specific, predictable environments. It often occurs at the beginning of vowel-initial words after a pause. The glottal stop can also separate vowel articulations within words, such as in IQ-onderzoek, milieu-imago, toe-eigenen, coöperatie, and beaam. This is particularly common in the case of compounds where both elements have the same vowel at the syllable-boundary, examples being hippie-ideaal, mee-eten, glijijzer, bui-uitdoving, kilo-ohm, trouwauto, and na-apen. Apart from , all alveolar consonants are laminal and can be realized as denti-alveolar in Belgium. and are fully voiced. is not a native phoneme of Dutch and occurs only in loanwords, like goal ('goal'); however is nevertheless analyzed as a phoneme because minimal pairs exist—e.g. goal and kool ('cabbage'). Additionally, in native words, occurs as an allophone of when it undergoes regressive voicing assimilation, like in zakdoek . In the north, often devoices and merges with ; the quality of that merged sound has been variously described as a voiceless post-velar or uvular fricative. In the south, the distinction between and is generally preserved as velar or post-palatal . Some southern speakers may alternate between the velar and post-palatal articulation, depending on the backness of the preceding or succeeding vowel. Velar, post-velar and uvular variants are called harde g "hard g", while the post-palatal variants are called zachte g "soft g". There is also a third variant called zwakke harde g "weak hard g", in which is realized as and is realized as and is used in Zeeland and West Flanders, which are h-dropping areas, so that does not merge with glottal variants of and . In the Netherlands, can devoice and merge with . According to , there are hardly any speakers of Northern Standard Dutch who consistently contrast with . In low-prestige varieties of Netherlandic Dutch (such as the Amsterdam accent) also can devoice and merge with . Speakers who devoice and may also hypercorrectively voice and : concert "concert" may thus be compared to the more usual . Some speakers pronounce as a voiceless . Some dialects, particularly those from the southwest, exhibit h-dropping. In the Netherlands, and may have only mid-to-low pitched friction, and for many Netherlandic speakers, they are retracted. In Belgium, they are more similar to English . The sequences and are often assimilated to palatalized , alveolo-palatal , postalveolar or similar realizations. The onset sequence is commonly realized as a tenuis alveolo-palatal affricate , or intervocalically as a stop or fricative , barring some loanwords and names. The onset sequence is commonly realized as a tenuis alveolo-palatal affricate . or intervocalically as a stop or fricative , barring some loanwords and names. Before , is realized as a voiceless post-palatal affricate . are not native phonemes of Dutch and usually occur only in borrowed words, like show and bagage "baggage". Depending on the speaker and the position in the word, they may or may not be distinct from the assimilated realizations of the clusters . If they are not distinct, they will have the same range of realizations noted above. Unlike English and German, in Dutch the voiceless stops are unaspirated in all positions: both English tip and German are both , but Dutch is with an unaspirated .