Verschrikkelijk

terrible, dreadful, awful [adjective / adverb] [‘vur-sgri-ku-luk’]

"Verschrikkelijk" is for most non-native Dutch speakers a terrible word to pronounce 🙂 The tongue breaking focuses around the letter combination "s"-"ch"-"r", pronounced: sharp "s" – raspy "g" – rolling "r". The only thing that we can advise is: keep on practising 😉

Examples:
– "Verschrikkelijk!"
("Terrible!")

– "Dat is verschrikkelijk nieuws!"
("That is awful news!")

– "Het spijt me verschrikkelijk, lieveling."
("I’m dreadfully sorry, darling.")

– "Sinds de introductie van de euro is alles verschrikkelijk duur geworden."
("Since the introduction of the euro, everything has become terribly expensive.")

– "Frank deed verschrikkelijk kinderachtig tijdens die vergadering."
("Frank acted terribly childish during that meeting." Lit.: "Frank did terribly childish…")

– "Wat een verschrikkelijk auto ongeluk: drie doden, één zwaargewonde."
("What a terrible car accident: three dead, one heavily injured.")

Related words:
– "Gruwelijk": horrible.
– "De Verschrikkelijke Sneeuwman": The Yeti.  Lit.: The Abominable Snowman.

3 thoughts on “Verschrikkelijk

  1. Hi there. Great to find this site. I am a student of NT2 inburgering course. Expect me regularly here nowonwards…..

  2. I love this word, even if I can’t quite say it!
    I’ve been studying Dutch from all the way over in Western Australia and love this site. Thanks for all the great words and examples.

  3. And it’s so damn easy if you’re a native Dutch;-)
    Girls (especially the single ones around 30, not being over 500 pounds and thinking about a move to Holland) having trouble pronouncing words correctly; just drop me a line and I’ll try to help you.
    Peter
    peter.anrochte@kpnmail.nl

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