English pronunciation of Dutch foreign minister

[jal]

In the wake of the tragic disaster with the civilian plane shot down over the Ukraine last week, Dutch foreign minister Timmermans held an appeal to the UN Security Council. I only just listened to it, and what stroke me is his pronunciation. Being used to the English of our Prime Minister and his predecessors, I expected something awful, but I must say I was pleasantly surprised. He has a Dutch accent, for sure, forgetting aspiration or final voicing now and then, but on the whole I find it quite good, for a politician and non-native speaker. He's quite a polyglot, also speaking German, French, Russian and Italian (and a variety of Limburgish, which is his native tongue). You can hear him speak here (assuming the link works outside the Netherlands). My question to the native speakers among you is: what is your opinion of his pronunciation?


JAL

[Salmoneus]

Link doesn't work for me. But I listened to him in http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NISEgDi4mdc instead. I assume his accent has remained the same.

If so, it's a lovely accent. As with many L2s, his accent is rather old-fashioned - he could almost pass for a very well-educated Englishman. It's the sort of accent you might hear from an academic or diplomat - I think it's a good one to have, as it sounds intelligent but not too snobbish. However, not the best to emulate if you want to sound like the man on the street.

I don't have the best ear, I'll admit. But a couple of vowel sounds stand out. His /E\/ seems more like a real [E], that is a short version of /E:/, particularly before a rhotic - his 'Secretary Kerry' sounds almost like 'sehcretairy carey'. This may just be a learner's simplification, but it also is something I associate with older RP accents. This actually made me startle at his "at", in which /{/ is very open (? I think open - sound 'coarse' to me), whereas those accents tended to shift this toward [E] as well (quick tip for a WWII airman's accent: make every vowel possible into /E:::/....).

Likewise, his /Q/ is very lovely. It might be just that it's lower and or backer than normal, but I think what it is it that his /Q/ is actually rounded - whereas SSBE /Q/ is normally just sulcalised. Again, this sounds pleasantly old-fashioned. Particularly obvious when he stresses his 'not'.

His diphthongs /aI/ and /aU/ are also old-fashioned in a good way. In both cases the start point is different from mine, and I think the end-point of /U/ is also different. I can't tell how exactly - probably they're more extreme, since he generally has quite extreme vowels. I notice this about his /i/ as well, for instance in 'leadership'.

The second vowel in 'support' is interesting somehow - is it rhotic? Or maybe he's doing the old-fashioned thing of having it be [O@]? (in SSBE it normally simplifies into [O:])

"first and foremost to stop atrocities against innocent people in Syria" - now that I'm listening closely, there are some interesting things. His 'foremost' sounds vaguely 'northern' to me - again, is he rhotic? Is that 'most' right? 'Atrocities' sounds a bit south ifrican, as does 'innocent', somehow (I think it's the quality of the ), while 'people' sounds... oh, I don't know what, but it's the nature of his syllabic lateral. In Syria, I know what is odd is that he doesn't reduce the final vowel enough (although he does earlier on in the speech - maybe it's because there's a pause here?). 'Same page' - his /eI/ isn't quite normal either, maybe too raised?

I think his /u/ is odd - I'm guessing it's too far back although I can't consciously tell the difference.

Yes! 'track record' - the /{/ is definitely raised there. I think he sometime raises, sometimes lowers? I don't know if there's a rule to when.

One thing on consonants - is it just me, or, early on when he says 'issues', is there something about the /S/? Maybe not enough secondary labialisation? Maybe POA too far forward?

ANYWAY.
Short version: first impression is that he's a well-educated, somewhat upper-class but not totally posh, native speaker. Second impression is that he's a learner who has learned from a book, or maybe in a university a long time ago. There's nothing he says that's ever entirely wrong, but after listening to a bit some things jump out as maybe not quite in place - not the individual values, but maybe the combination of them? As though it's a possible native accent, but not one that actually exists? I think it's a very pleasant accent, in any case. Most English people would probably say he had a 'better' ('more correct') accent than they did...

He certainly doesn't sound Dutch. I think I might have guessed Dutch or German but only by indirect deduction - that sort of old-fashioned 'proper' English is something I've heard from older Dutch, German, Scandinavian people in the past.

[din]

The fact that he often has a very short [ɛ] for /æ/ gives away that he's Dutch. It's a pretty hard sound to learn (at least, to distinguish from /ɛ/) for most Dutch speakers. Dutch short vowels in general are a little shorter than their English counterparts, which makes it easy to identify them (at least, for other Dutch speakers or those familiar with the language).

Though his accent is definitely pretty good

[Salmoneus]

The fact that he often has a very short [ɛ] for /æ/ gives away that he's Dutch. It's a pretty hard sound to learn (at least, to distinguish from /ɛ/) for most Dutch speakers. Dutch short vowels in general are a little shorter than their English counterparts, which makes it easy to identify them (at least, for other Dutch speakers or those familiar with the language).

Though his accent is definitely pretty good

Short vowel shortness might be what I'm hearing as south africanness. And my reading on /{/ would make sense if maybe he has difficulty, often uses /E/ when it should be /{/, but then at other times overcompensates by making them more distinct than they should be.

[jal]

Here's the YouTube version of the original video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=juW7fSmJm-k
I also think he sometimes has voiced Dutch /ɦ/, e.g. the first on "how horrible".


JAL

[pdusen]

To my very American ears, he sounds like he's from somewhere in Britain. It's very good.

[GreenBowTie]

it's /ˈdʌtʃ ˈforən ˈmɪnɪstɚ/, hth

[Nortaneous]

his pronunciation of 'eye to eye' strikes me as weird but i don't know why. i doubt i could tell he's not a native speaker.