The overall results obtained from this project will be used to create a digital resource (website/app) which explains the correspondences and differences in pronunciation between Dutch, English and German to assist English language learners. So far, when pronunciation information is available, it is often presented in highly specialist terms and thus not intelligible to teachers and learners without historical linguistic knowledge or expertise in phonetics.
As all three languages are West Germanic and show a large degree of overlap, there are a number of rule-based historical changes which explain variation that may not be obvious at first glance. Our aim is to simplify those rules and explain them in such a way that they can be used in language learning and teaching. Hopefully, this way students will be able to apply these rules not just to words they have already learned but also to new material they encounter.