How to pronounce Colle?

[hgm]

'Ch' in Dutch is an unvoiced guttural fricative.

Fricatives are hissing sounds produced by blowing air through a constriction of the vocal tract. Other examples are 'f' (constriction at the lips, or teeth on lips), and 's' (constriction at the tip of the tongue). For the 'ch' the constriction woud be deep in the throat, like you were going to speak a 'k' (which is the explosive counterpart of 'ch').

So bend your vocal tract in the shape like you are going to say a 'k', and then, keeping it almost frozen, force air trough your throat. It sounds a bit like being choked. I think the sound alsooccurs in semitic languages, and is then usually transcribed as 'kh' in English. (But that does not help much in having Anglophones pronounce it...)

The 'sch' combination is the consonat equivaent to a diphtong, where the sound-producing constriction is moved during its pronouncition from the tip of your tongue to the very back of your throat.