How do you pronounce 'Geert Wilders?'

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

Very important question.

I've heard it pronounced so many different ways, but I heard a BBC reporter refer to him as 'Hurt Vill-ders' on one occasion, so that's the way I've been saying it now.

[Grand Wizard Lizard of the Klan]

Gert Wildersh as far as I know.

[ApatheticAustrian]

yeah, i would go with mister wizard.

[Lexii, harbinger of chaos and sexual anarchy]

Gurt Vilders

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Gear-t Vill-ders.

[Intell]

Gurt Vilders

[JA]

Gear-t Vill-ders.

[angus]

other. 

None of the above.  I pronounce the G in Geert the same as the G in the number negen (9).  We don't exactly have that sound.  (It's a bit like the sound of the غ in Arabic, usually transliterated "gh" as in "Abu Ghraib" or "Bahgdad", or a bit like the letter "r" in the German word "rauchen" when someone from Northern Germany who has a plattdeutsch accent says it.  I think that's correct, anyway.  I'm not a linguist by training, but I learn languages fairly quickly and I have attended school in Northern Germany, worked as a visiting post-doc in Amsterdam, and did the "teach yourself Arabic" book with cassette tape a couple of decades ago in preparation for a trip to Egypt.)

So that's G as in "negen" followed by eert--ee as in the first syllable in Amelia Earhart's last name, with a soft R (just the beginning of a cat's purr but with no roll), and a very hard T, unvoiced.  Some of the linguists probably have a fancy symbol for these sounds but I'm not familiar with them. 

Wilders is sort of like Veel'  Drrz, with a stress on the first syllable.  Voiced sibilant at the end.  I'm not quite sure if that's correct, but I think it's basically pronounced just how it's spelled.  The Flemish/Dutch language doesn't have quite as many exceptions to the rules as English, so it's not particularly difficult.  The only sound that they have that we don't is the G one, and you can just say it like a northern German says an R or like an arab says the غ. 

[MAINEiac4434]

Judging by how the "g" in Louis Van Gaal is pronounced, I think "Hurt" is how his first name is pronounced.

[Antonio the Sixth]

G'air't Vill-durs

[DPKdebator]

Geer-t Will-durs

[angus]

pull up any video clip of wilders uttering "ik ben geen racist!"--it's not hard to find; that guy is in the news regularly and is constantly defending his ideology--and you'll hear how the word "geen" is pronounced.  One assumes that Geert starts with the same sounds as geen.

[Crumpets]

Geer-t Will-durs

This was my guess as well.

[Classic Conservative]

Geer-t Will-durs

[President of the great nation of 🏳️‍⚧️]

Geer-t Will-durs

This was my guess as well.

[Lechasseur]

I'm somewhat familiar with Dutch, and from what I learnt in Dutch the pronounciation should be something like ''HAIRT WEELDUHS''

This being because:
-''G'' is pronounced like an ''H'' in Dutch
-''EE'' is pronounced like the ''ai'' in ''hair''
-''W'' is pronounced like an English ''W'' and not like a ''V'' as the German ''W'' is
-And Dutch is non-rhotic (as are most other West Germanic languages and dialects, including German and most varieties of English) so the ''R'' isn't pronounced unless it starts a syllable, thus the ''ers'' in Wilders is pronounced ''uhs''

[Lexii, harbinger of chaos and sexual anarchy]

According to Wikipedia it's pronounced with a [ʋ], an intermediate sound between v and w

[America Needs R'hllor]

Gee-rt will-ders. But I'm really bad at pronouncing things the right way.

[Figueira]

I've never actually pronounced it out loud.

[Dr. MB]

Gyurt Willders.

[DavidB.]

The way it should be pronounced (which is "other" in the poll). Though there are several acceptable ways to pronounce the G and the R in Dutch, the above options are all wrong. The options where his name starts with a H are especially wrong. "Geart" is more correct (though still incorrect) than "Gurt". "Hurt" hurts my ears.

It pains me to say this, but...

I'm somewhat familiar with Dutch, and from what I learnt in Dutch the pronounciation should be something like ''HAIRT WEELDUHS''

This being because:
-''G'' is pronounced like an ''H'' in Dutch

Wrong. It's just a different G that English speakers often cannot pronounce. It should be no problem for Parrotguy though

-''EE'' is pronounced like the ''ai'' in ''hair''

Wrong. It's more like the first "e" in "we're".

-''W'' is pronounced like an English ''W'' and not like a ''V'' as the German ''W'' is

Wrong, it's pronounced like the German W.

-And Dutch is non-rhotic (as are most other West Germanic languages and dialects, including German and most varieties of English) so the ''R'' isn't pronounced unless it starts a syllable, thus the ''ers'' in Wilders is pronounced ''uhs''

And this is wrong too, sorry. The "ers" is the part that English speakers should be able to do correctly, even if the "r" sound will be a little bit off.

[LLR]

gair-t vill-durz

[Lechasseur]

The way it should be pronounced (which is "other" in the poll). Though there are several acceptable ways to pronounce the G and the R in Dutch, the above options are all wrong. The options where his name starts with a H are especially wrong. "Geart" is more correct (though still incorrect) than "Gurt". "Hurt" hurts my ears.

It pains me to say this, but...

I'm somewhat familiar with Dutch, and from what I learnt in Dutch the pronounciation should be something like ''HAIRT WEELDUHS''

This being because:
-''G'' is pronounced like an ''H'' in Dutch

Wrong. It's just a different G that English speakers often cannot pronounce. It should be no problem for Parrotguy though

-''EE'' is pronounced like the ''ai'' in ''hair''

Wrong. It's more like the first "e" in "we're".

-''W'' is pronounced like an English ''W'' and not like a ''V'' as the German ''W'' is

Wrong, it's pronounced like the German W.

-And Dutch is non-rhotic (as are most other West Germanic languages and dialects, including German and most varieties of English) so the ''R'' isn't pronounced unless it starts a syllable, thus the ''ers'' in Wilders is pronounced ''uhs''

And this is wrong too, sorry. The "ers" is the part that English speakers should be able to do correctly, even if the "r" sound will be a little bit off.

Well I learnt Dutch in Wallonia. I dont know if Belgian Dutch is different from Netherlands Dutch or if I was just that bad at it. I'm pretty embarrassed to be honest. I'm bilingual in English and French and I'm somewhat fluent in German; Dutch is my fifth language and I especially know how to read in Dutch but my expression isn't too good.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

If you want to sound Dutch, imagine you are a German constantly suffering from a debilitating stroke.

[DavidB.]

It's pronounced at 0:04 here.