> Well, i must have been real tired yesterday-evening, that i couldnt come up with a prononciation-aid for that dutch name!
> Its so obvious! Of course that 'ie' exists in english!!!!
>
> Pronounce Rien Poortvliet as:
> 'ie' = the first 'i' in millennium, so a short 'e' (or the 'i' in mini ... )
> and the 'ie' in Poortvliet is the same
> but 'rtvl' is probably hard to pronounce for you (right, Issachar?)
>
> So R-ien Pooooort-vl-iet should do the trick.

Uh... my next door neighbour is fluently Dutch, but she's away on vacation right now so I can't ask her how different her Dutch is from Flemish. She did tell me that "v" is often pronounced "f" in the middle of a word. So wouldn't that name go something like:

"Rin Poooortuh-FLEET" ? or "-FLIT"?

I cannot read or speak any Dutch despite knowing quite a few Netherlanders. They are very nice people to meet though!

And Rien Poortvliet is one of my favorite nature wildlife artists.

Wolfspirit