Stumbling blocks of Dutch pronunciation for Czech students

Abstract

In the Ph.D.-thesis De contrastieve beschrijving van de verzorgde uitspraak van het Nederlands en het Tsjechisch vanuit het perspectief van de Tsjechische spreker van het Nederlands (A Contrastive Description of the Standard Pronunciation of Dutch and Czech from the Perspective of the Czech Learners of Dutch), a comparative description is given of the sound systems of Dutch and Czech. In two separate chapters sound inventories of the analyzed languages are examined with the aim to show differences and similarities. First, the vocalic inventory is discussed and then the consonantal inventory. On the basis of the theory a detailed overview is given of the potential stumbling blocks, i.e. difficult sounds for the Czech speakers. In this article I analyze recordings of twenty speakers, all students of Dutch of the BA first year to the fifth year MA, and I look at the pronunciation of vowels and diphthongs based on the recorded example sentences.