Accents in Dutch: café, hé, vóór

Dutch uses three accent marks borrowed from French: the acute (´) in café, the grave (`) in hè, and the circumflex (ˆ) in enquête. They sit over a vowel and tell you how to read or stress it. (The two dots of the trema are a separate mark and do a different job.)

The acute has two jobs — marking emphasis or a long ee in Dutch words, and staying on borrowed French words. The grave and circumflex appear almost only in loanwords and a few fixed exclamations.

On everyday Dutch words the acute (´) is a stress mark: put it on the vowel of the word you want to stand out, whether that vowel is short (dát, wél) or long. A capital never carries the mark, so an emphasized word that opens a sentence stays bare. And when the stressed sound is spelled with a pair of vowels, both letters take an accent together, as in twéé.

• To stress the key word in a sentence: Ik wil dát boek. (I want that book — that one.) Ik bedoel jóú, niet hem. (I mean you, not him.)
• To tell een (a/an) from één (one): Ik heb maar één vraag. (I have only one question.) See the numbers.
• To tell voor (for) from vóór (before, in front of): Ik sta vóór je. (I am standing in front of you.) Ik doe het voor je. (I do it for you.) Here the accent is optional but common.
• To separate a pair like vóórkomen (to occur) from voorkómen (to prevent): the accent shows which part carries the stress.

Words borrowed from French bring their accent with them, so the mark is just part of how the word is spelled. On a final -é it earns its place: drop it and the e would fade into a faint, unstressed sound, but the accent tells you to give it the full French -ay, as in café (kah-FAY) or privé (pree-VAY).

• Acute (´): café (café), privé (private), cliché (cliché), comité (committee).
• Grave (`): scène (scene), crème (cream), première (premiere), barrière (barrier).
• Circumflex (ˆ): enquête (survey), crêpe (crêpe), gêne (embarrassment).

The tricky pair is hé against hè. The acute hé is read with a long ee and calls for attention or voices a pleasant surprise or greeting: Hé, wacht even! (Hey, wait a moment!) Hé, ben jij het? (Oh, it's you!) The grave hè is read with a short e and seeks agreement, or voices a sigh of relief or disappointment: Wat warm, hè? (Warm, isn't it? — inviting you to agree.) The direction of the mark follows the sound: é leans toward a long, bright vowel (café), è toward a short, open one (scène). Do not sprinkle the acute over words for decoration — it belongs only where you genuinely stress or contrast a word.