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Dutch ij vs ei: one sound, two spellings

In modern Dutch, ij and ei are pronounced identically — both are the diphthong [ɛi]. ijs (ice) and a hypothetical eis (demand) rhyme perfectly. There is no sound difference to hear; the two spellings are a frozen accident of history.

How to make the sound

Start from the vowel of English bed or pet [ɛ], then glide upward towards the ee of see [i]. The result is close to the English “ay” in day, but the starting point is more open — you begin lower, at “eh”, not at “ay”.

1. Say “eh” as in bed. Jaw slightly open, lips relaxed and unrounded.
2. Glide smoothly up towards “ee”, raising the tongue. Do not round the lips at any point.
3. Keep it short and single. ij/ei is one quick movement, not two separate vowels.

Compare English bait (starts at “ay”) with Dutch bijt (bites, starts at “eh”). Landing on the English “ay” is understandable but marks a foreign accent; the wider, lower start is what makes it sound Dutch.

Why there are two spellings for one sound

Centuries ago the two were different. ij (once written ii, a long ii) began as a long [iː], while ei was already a diphthong. Over time the long ij diphthongised and drifted until it merged completely with ei. The spelling never caught up. To keep them apart in speech Dutch people call them by nicknames: ij is the lange ij (long ij) and ei is the korte ei (short ei) — names that describe the letters, not any difference in sound.

Which one do you write?

Because the sound gives you no clue, spelling ij versus ei is something even Dutch native speakers memorise word by word — it is a staple of school spelling tests. There is no fully reliable rule, but a few tendencies help:

• The verb ending -lijk and the suffix -lijk (as in gemakkelijk, easy; eigenlijk, actually) are always written with ij — and, notably, pronounced not as [ɛi] at all but as a weak schwa: -lijk = /lək/, “-luhk”. See the note below.
• Many words of French or Latin origin keep ei: trein (train), plein (square), kapitein (captain).
• Verb conjugations from a stem with ij keep ij: blijven → blijf, schrijven → schrijf.
• Otherwise, learn the spelling with the word. There is no shortcut a listener can use.

Homophones: same sound, different spelling

Because ij and ei sound the same, Dutch has pairs that are pronounced identically and told apart only in writing (or by context). A few classic ones:

Context always disambiguates in real speech, so you never need to worry about being misunderstood — only about spelling them correctly.

The curious capital IJ

Dutch treats ij as a single unit, close to being its own letter. The clearest evidence is capitalisation: when a word beginning with ij is capitalised, both letters go up. The lake is IJsselmeer, not “Ijsselmeer”; the river is the IJssel; ice cream at the start of a sentence is IJs. In older handwriting and some fonts the ij is even drawn as a single ligature resembling a y with two dots, which is why you will occasionally see Dutch people write y where you expect ij. In crosswords and when spacing letters vertically, ij often occupies one square.

North and south

The [ɛi] realisation is fairly uniform across the language, but the exact starting point varies. In much of the Netherlands' Randstad the diphthong is pronounced with a noticeably open, lowered start, sometimes drifting towards [ai] (“ah-ee”) in broad city accents. In Flanders (Belgium) and the southern Netherlands it tends to be tighter and more monophthong-like, closer to a long [ɛː] with only a slight glide. Both map onto the same ij/ei spelling and are fully standard.

Practice list

ij/ei is one of the core Dutch diphthongs; see how it sits beside ui and the others on the diphthongs page, and pair it with the hard g for the two most distinctive Dutch sounds.