The ability to understand speech must be considered the most important measurable aspect of human auditory function. Due to the innovative developments in hearing aids and cochlear implants, there has been a renewed interest in speech recognition testing. During recent years, the start of several multi-centre studies have increased the urge to come to some consensus on the use of different speech materials. In this article a global overview of existing types of speech material in Dutch will be given. For each type, there is a reference to similar speech audiometric tests in French, English and German.