Beyond the famous G sound, Dutch has several consonants worth systematic attention. The W is a gentle sound — between English W and V, produced with the top teeth touching the lower lip lightly: water, wijn, werken. The V is similar but slightly more voiced. In many Dutch speakers, W and V are nearly identical. The Z is voiced like English Z: zee, zomer, zeggen. The S is unvoiced: straat, snel, school. The distinction between S and Z matters for word meaning: zat (sat/drunk) vs. sat (would not be a Dutch word).
The J in Dutch is always the English Y sound — never the English J sound: ja (yes — sounds like “yah”), jij (you — sounds like “yay”), jongen (boy). The NG combination is pronounced as in English “sing” — never as “ng-g”: lang, zingen, rang. The NK combination: denken, drinken, brengen — the N is a velar nasal before K. And the SCH combination: in words like school, schoon it sounds like “skh” — the S is followed by the Dutch CH sound.
Final devoicing is a systematic feature of Dutch: voiced consonants become unvoiced at the end of a syllable or word. D → T: bed pronounced “bet,” bad → “bat.” B → P: club → “klup.” V → F, Z → S at word boundaries. This is why Dutch spelling sometimes preserves a voiced letter that is not pronounced voiced at the end — it shows the underlying form. Understanding final devoicing explains many apparent spelling-pronunciation mismatches and prevents errors like pronouncing bed with a D sound.