The Dutch alphabet: letter names, IJ, and spelling out loud

Dutch is written with the same 26 letters as English, a to z. What changes is the name of each letter when you say it out loud — the letter j is called jee (it sounds like English "yay"). You need those names the moment you have to spell your name or your burgerservicenummer (citizen service number, the BSN) at a counter.

The alphabet is identical to the English one; only the spoken names differ, plus one combination — ij — that Dutch treats as a single written unit. Here is how each letter is named.

Four names trip up English speakers, because the Dutch letter sounds nothing like the English one:

• g is gee, said with the throaty Dutch g — not the English "jee".
• j is jee, which sounds like English "yay".
• w is wee, which sounds like English "vay".
• y is rare in Dutch and is called Griekse y (Greek y) or ypsilon.

ij is two letters written together that stand for a single vowel sound — the same sound as ei. Dutch treats ij as one unit, which has two visible effects.

1. When a word beginning with ij is capitalised, both letters go to capitals: IJsselmeer (a lake), IJsland (Iceland), IJmuiden (a town). Writing Ijsland is wrong — see capital letters.
2. ij is never broken across the end of a line; it stays together as one unit (more on breaking words in dividing words into syllables).
3. In a dictionary, a word with ij is sorted under i, as i + j (so between ii and ik), not as a separate letter after x.

The letter y is a different thing. It appears almost only in borrowed words — baby, systeem (system), yoga — and in a few names. Originally Dutch words use ij, not y.

To spell your name, address or BSN at a loket (counter), read out the letter names above, one by one.

• For a repeated letter, say dubbele (double): Aanders → a, a, n, d, e, r, s or dubbel-a, n, d, e, r, s.
• If a letter is unclear on the phone, add a name: de b van Bernard (the b as in Bernard).
• The combination ij is spoken as ij (one unit), not i, j: Wijnand → w, ij, n, a, n, d.
• Numbers in a BSN are read as separate digits, not as one long number.

The most common slip is reading the letters with their English names — spelling Jan as "jay, ay, en" instead of jee, aa, en. The letters that cause the most confusion are g, j, w and e/i: the Dutch letter i sounds like the English "ee" in see, while the Dutch letter e sounds like the English "ay" in day — the opposite of the English letter names. Practise your own name a few times before you need it at the counter.