>>>Shouldn't "ui" be pronounced like "oy"? It's been decades since I've been in the Netherlands, but I seem to remember that much (and I hope not wrongly :).
>>
>>Like oister ? Well, not exactly but it is the closest I can come up with. The 'ui' is something I never heard in another language (not even german who indeed would pronounce it like 'oi'. Meybe it is closer to 'eu' from euthnesia. But again it is about imposible to describe in words how it should be pronouced.

>You obviously know your vowels - I did hear this "pronounce it as oi" from a German :).

>There's just a few things I managed to learn - how to pronounce the throaty G

Actaully the G is not to hard for anyone who speaks spanish as it is more or less the same as they pronounce the j in the name josé. It is always funny hearing foreigners strugling with citynames like scheveningen...

>to pronounce v as somewhere halfway between f and v, and that s should be a bit softer, with a slight sh-ish echo.

Not sure if the is the case.

>As for vowels, a Dutch sailor once told me that it's actually quite simple, there are five vowels (unpronounceable list here), but it becomes complicated with the five diphthongs: a, e, i, o and u. That's where I understood that the coordinate system is substantially different :).

It can get very confusing for a dutchman to spell a word basically because of the following:
An 'e' sound like an english 'a'
An 'i' sound like an english 'e'
An 'ai' and 'y' sound like an english 'i'
An 'oe' sounds like an english 'u''

I don't know of any english words that sound like 'a', 'u' or 'ui'

I always find myself making mistakes when spell a word throught he phone.


Walter,