I just stumbled upon this “10 things we didn’t know last week” post, and point number 8 was “The two most common pronunciations of Van Gogh are wrong”. As a native Dutch speaker I can only say “well, duh”. English speakers rarely, if ever, get the pronunciation of Dutch words or names right.

The thing is, we don’t mind. Really. We’d rather you just stopped trying and got on with it. We’re fine with that. Dutch is a strange language with lots of funny noises and you’ll only do yourself an injury when you try to emulate them. It’s just not worth it.

But at the same time (and this really follows directly from the first point) we’d appreciate it if you didn’t try to teach other people how to pronounce Dutch words. Because you’ll only perpetuate the wrong pronunciation, and worse, you’ll imbue those other people with a confidence that isn’t justified. Just say “this is how I pronounce it”, or “this is how it’s pronounced in English” but don’t pretend it’s how the Dutch pronounce it.

I once read a piece (on a NASA website I think) by someone who claimed with great confidence that the name Huygens (the famous Dutch scientist after whom the probe that landed on Titan was named) was pronounced “Hoygens”. Well it isn’t. The “uy” is pronounced with a vowel sound that, as far as I know, doesn’t exist anywhere in the English language, so we don’t mind if an English speaker doesn’t get it right. Calling the man (and the probe) “Hoygens” is fine by us. But please don’t claim that it is the “correct” pronunciation. Okay?

If you’re interested, you can hear the proper pronunciation of Huygens’ name (and that of another Dutch scientist, Antoni van Leeuwenhoek) from this page.