Dutch spelling is highly systematic — more so than English — but a few rules about silent letters and spelling conventions are worth learning explicitly. The most important: final consonant devoicing is not reflected in spelling. Bed is spelled B-E-D even though it sounds like “bet” — because the underlying form has a voiced D (shown in bedden). Similarly hond sounds like “hont” but the D is shown in spelling. This spelling convention preserves the morphological identity of the word across its forms.
Double vowels and double consonants are used to indicate vowel length. A single vowel in a closed syllable is short (man, bed, bit). A double vowel is always long (maan, been, boom). To maintain a long vowel in a closed syllable, the vowel is doubled: ramen (open syllable, long a) → singular raam (double vowel to mark length). To maintain a short vowel before a vowel suffix, the consonant doubles: zon → zonnen (double N to keep the O short).
Silent letters: the H at the start of some words is silent in informal speech (though formally present): het, hem, haar in fast speech often lose the H. The -n at the end of infinitives and plurals is silent in many regional varieties — werken sounds like “werke” in Amsterdam speech. The -lijk suffix often sounds like “-lk” in rapid speech: eigenlijk → “eigenlk.” Understanding these conventions prevents the confusion of reading Dutch text aloud too literally.