Native Dutch words barely use the letters c, q, x, and y — they are the alphabet's guest workers, living almost entirely in borrowed vocabulary. The good news for an English speaker is that this borrowed layer is mostly predictable, because English and Dutch borrowed the same Latin, Greek, and French words and adapted them along parallel lines. Two endings in particular form a clean, learnable bridge: Dutch -tie is the regular translation of English -tion (nation → natie, information → informatie), and Dutch -isch is the regular translation of English -ic (logic → logisch) — though -isch is pronounced nothing like it looks. This page maps those correspondences and the behaviour of the loan letters. It is the spelling counterpart to loanword sounds, which covers how these letters are pronounced; here the focus is how they are spelled, and how to convert an English word into its Dutch cousin.
The letter c: /k/ before a, o, u; /s/ before e, i
The single most important loan-letter rule is that c has two values, decided by the following vowel — the same split English and French use:
- c = /k/ before a, o, u and before a consonant: café, contact, cultuur, club.
- c = /s/ before e, i, y: cent, citroen, cyclus.
Zullen we in dat nieuwe café afspreken?
'Shall we meet at that new café?' café: c before a = /k/ ('ka-FEE'), plus the acute accent from French.
Dat kost maar vijftig cent.
'That's only fifty cents.' cent: c before e = /s/ ('sent').
Hij drinkt zijn thee altijd met een schijfje citroen.
'He always takes his tea with a slice of lemon.' citroen: c before i = /s/.
This matters for spelling because a single word can show both values when it inflects or compounds, and you must not "fix" one to match the other:
Het is een logisch en consequent betoog.
'It's a logical and consistent argument.' consequent: the first c (before o) = /k/; the qu = /kw/. Two loan patterns in one word.
The c→k nativisation: cultuur, kritiek
Over centuries, Dutch has nativised many loanwords by rewriting the Latinate c as k wherever it was pronounced /k/ — a deliberate step the Taalunie's spelling encourages. So where English kept culture with a c, Dutch wrote cultuur; where English has critic/critical, Dutch has kritiek/kritisch with a k. The rule of thumb: if the /k/-sound is stable and the word feels well-integrated, Dutch tends to spell it with k.
| English | Dutch | Letter for /k/ |
|---|---|---|
| culture | cultuur | c (kept, before u) |
| critique / criticism | kritiek | k (nativised) |
| critical | kritisch | k (nativised) |
| contact | contact | c (kept, before o/a) |
| practical | praktisch | k (nativised) |
Ik heb veel kritiek gekregen, maar het was terechte kritiek.
'I got a lot of criticism, but it was justified criticism.' kritiek with a k — the nativised form of Latin critic-.
Dat lijkt me geen praktische oplossing.
'That doesn't seem like a practical solution to me.' praktisch with a k, not 'practisch'.
-tie = English -tion: natie, informatie, positie
This is the most productive single correspondence in the loanword layer. Almost any English noun ending in -tion has a Dutch cousin ending in -tie. The ending is pronounced roughly "-tsie" (a /t/ + /s/ glide), not the English "-shun."
| English | Dutch |
|---|---|
| nation | natie |
| information | informatie |
| position | positie |
| reaction | reactie |
| organisation | organisatie |
| situation | situatie |
Heb je al meer informatie over de nieuwe baan?
'Do you have any more information about the new job yet?' information → informatie; -tie said '-tsie'.
Zijn reactie verraste iedereen aan tafel.
'His reaction surprised everyone at the table.' reaction → reactie. Note the c (before t) plus the -tie ending.
Ze solliciteert naar een hogere positie binnen het bedrijf.
'She's applying for a higher position within the company.' position → positie.
A handful of English -tion words land on -sie instead (after certain consonants), e.g. discussion → discussie, explosion → explosie — but the default to reach for is -tie.
-isch = English -ic/-ical: logisch, said "-ies"
The other great correspondence is the adjective ending -isch, which answers English -ic and -ical. The trap is enormous: -isch is pronounced "-ies" (rhyming with English "geese"), with a completely silent ch. An English speaker's instinct to say "-ish" is wrong every time.
| English | Dutch | Said |
|---|---|---|
| logical | logisch | "LOH-gies" |
| critical | kritisch | "KRIE-ties" |
| fantastic | fantastisch | "fan-TAS-ties" |
| technical | technisch | "TEG-nies" |
| practical | praktisch | "PRAK-ties" |
Dat is toch niet logisch?
'That doesn't make sense, does it?' logisch — pronounced 'LOH-gies', never 'LOH-gish'. The ch is silent.
De voorstelling was echt fantastisch.
'The show was really fantastic.' fantastisch = 'fan-TAS-ties'; -isch is the regular Dutch -ic.
We hebben een technisch probleem met de installatie.
'We have a technical problem with the installation.' technisch = 'TEG-nies'; note installatie with -tie.
qu and x in loans
qu appears in loanwords as /kw/, exactly as in English quiz: quiz, aquarium, antiquair, kwaliteit (note that fully nativised words often respell qu as kw — kwaliteit, kwantiteit). x is /ks/ in loans (taxi, examen, maximum, tekst — where the nativised tekst uses ks).
We hebben een nieuw aquarium voor de woonkamer gekocht.
'We bought a new aquarium for the living room.' aquarium: qu = /kw/.
Mijn examen is volgende week dinsdag.
'My exam is next Tuesday.' examen: x = /ks/ ('ek-SA-men').
Let op de kwaliteit, niet alleen op de prijs.
'Mind the quality, not just the price.' kwaliteit — the Latin qu nativised to kw.
y in loans
y lives only in loanwords and behaves as a borrowed letter: it is a vowel /i/ in baby, systeem, type, or a consonant /j/ in yoghurt. Its Dutch letter-name is i-grec or Griekse y ("Greek y"). Plurals of -y loanwords ending in a stressed long vowel take an apostrophe: baby → baby's, hobby → hobby's (see the apostrophe rule).
Het hele systeem ligt er sinds vanmorgen uit.
'The whole system has been down since this morning.' systeem: y = /i/, said like the Dutch ie.
Ze hebben twee baby's en allebei een drukke baan.
'They have two babies and both have busy jobs.' baby's — apostrophe plural after the long final vowel.
Common Mistakes
❌ information / nation kept as English -tion
Incorrect — the Dutch cousins end in -tie: informatie, natie.
✅ informatie / natie
'information / nation' — English -tion maps to Dutch -tie.
❌ logisch pronounced 'LOH-gish'
Incorrect — -isch is said '-ies' with a silent ch, never '-ish'.
✅ logisch = 'LOH-gies'
'logical' — write -isch, say '-ies'.
❌ Writing 'logies' or 'logis' for the adjective
Incorrect — even though it sounds like '-ies', it is spelled -isch with a silent ch.
✅ logisch, kritisch, technisch
'logical, critical, technical' — all spelled -isch.
❌ cent pronounced 'kent' (c as /k/ before e)
Incorrect — c before e and i is /s/, not /k/.
✅ cent = 'sent', café = 'ka-FEE'
c is /s/ before e/i, /k/ before a/o/u.
❌ critisch / critiek with a c
Incorrect — Dutch nativises the c to k here: kritisch, kritiek.
✅ kritisch / kritiek
'critical / criticism' — k, not c, in the nativised forms.
Key Takeaways
- c = /k/ before a, o, u and consonants (café, contact), but /s/ before e, i, y (cent, citroen).
- Dutch nativises many Latinate /k/-spellings from c to k: kritiek, kritisch, praktisch (but cultuur, contact keep the c).
- English -tion → Dutch -tie, said "-tsie": natie, informatie, positie, reactie, organisatie.
- English -ic/-ical → Dutch -isch, spelled with a silent ch but said "-ies": logisch, kritisch, fantastisch, technisch.
- qu = /kw/ (often respelled kw when nativised: kwaliteit); x = /ks/; y is a loan letter taking an apostrophe plural (baby's).
Now practice Dutch
Reading grammar gets you part of the way. The exercises are where it sticks — free, no signup needed.
Start learning Dutch→Related Topics
- Spelling of Loanwords and AnglicismsC1 — How Dutch spells and inflects borrowed words: English nouns take Dutch plurals (managers, baby's), English verbs conjugate by Dutch rules (updaten → ik update, geüpdatet), and -tie answers English -tion.
- Loanword Sounds and Foreign PhonemesC1 — Pronouncing borrowed sounds outside the native Dutch inventory — French nasals and soft g, near-English business loans, and how c, q, x, y behave in foreign words.
- The Trema and the ApostropheB1 — The trema (ë ï ö ü) breaks a vowel sequence into separate syllables so it isn't misread as a digraph — coördinatie, reünie, ruïne — while the apostrophe forms plurals of vowel-final words (foto's, baby's) and certain genitives (Anna's auto). Both are grammatical, not decorative.
- Acute, Grave and Circumflex AccentsB1 — Dutch is normally accent-free, but the acute accent does real work: it distinguishes één 'one' from een 'a/an', marks contrastive emphasis in writing (Dít wil ik, héél mooi), and is inherited in loanwords (café, scène, enquête, ça va). The acute on één is the single most important grammatical accent in Dutch.
- The Most Common Spelling Errors (A2)A2 — A focused triage of the six spelling slips that account for most A2 errors — vowel doubling (manen vs mannen), consonant doubling, the silent -dt in wordt, v/f and z/s swaps in plurals like huizen, and the apostrophe in foto's — each with a before/after fix.