"Welke locaties?"

Translation: Which sites?

[BillofKempsey]

The audio has a definite S sound after the T. Is that correct pronunciation (if so, please explain!) or just faulty audio?

[Simius]

Yes, that pronunciation is in fact correct. If a word ends on -tie (or plural -ties), there is an S sound after the T. I guess that is a bit of an irregularity.

[BillofKempsey]

Nothing new there, then!

I am loving learning Dutch but sometimes the irregularities and exceptions get a little frustrating. I suppose they just prove that it is a living language. :-)

(And, yes, I know English has even more.)

[johaquila]

In this case it's just an example of a universal linguistic phenomenon. The corresponding words of Latin origin get exactly the same transformation in German: Lokation being pronounced 'Lokatsion.' French and Spanish have gone a step further and dropped the t, resulting in the pronunciation 'locasion' (optionally with a lisp in the case of continental Spanish). English has gone even further and replaced the 's' by 'sh' - in addition to severe changes to the vowels. Except for Spanish, all these languages have retained the letters ti out of respect for the original Latin spelling. (The Spanish spelling with ci essentially reflects the earlier tsi pronunciation.)

[SimonKoch-Sultan]

That is the way Latium became Lazio (LA-tsee-oh) in Italian. It's cool to see that this happened in Germanic languages too.

[Redswish]

Fascinating point. Always worth remembering that no language is alone in its irregularities.

[81cheney]

Can it be 'which locations'?

[Flora_Cheung]

Yes. That was my translation, which was accepted.

[hiko-cool]

I thought if it ends in a vowel then the plural gets an apostrophe

[johaquila]

No, this is wrong. The apostrophie is only used after certain consonants, especially s.

[My nonsensical original comment: Locatie doesn't end in a vowel, so this comment is a bit puzzling.]

[Bageder]

Curiouser and curiouser! It certainly looks and sounds to me as though it ends with a vowel. I need help with this!

[johaquila]

Oops. Of course you are right. Wild-Bore's comment made no sense to me, and in trying to understand it I must have switched the meaning of vowel and consonant.

[Bageder]

That's ok.
So the question still remains as to why "locaties" has no apostrophe. It seems to end with the same sound as "baby's".

[El2theK]

Adding an s to ie does not change the sound of ie. It does however with words like:

• Menu
• Ski
• Auto

With those the vowel would change from a long sound to a short sound if you just add the s.

[Bageder]

Thank you, El2theK. I shall watch out for the difference in sound of "ies" and "ie's" endings in future.

[metaapr_]

is welke have 2 meaning? which and what?