Is Dutch EASY to learn?

Is Dutch easy to learn?
Is Dutch an easy language?
Is Dutch similar to English?
Is Dutch a logical language?
Is Dutch a direct language?
These questions we asked to foreigners/expats in the Netherlands.
More #dutchculture videos in the following playlist:
• How do the DUTCH celeb...
Video produced by:
Bart de Pau
(online Dutch teacher and founder of the Dutch Summer School)
Editing: Nicolas Balbontin, Claudia Macchiavelli
Music used under license: DREAMNOTEMUSIC, EVA_KISSMUSIC
Video was recorded at the BLC Dutch Summer School in Amsterdam
To know more about our:
- Dutch Summer School: dutchsummerschool.nl
- Dutch Winter School: dutchwinterschool.nl
- Learn Dutch online with Bart de Pau: www.learndutch.org

[@123MrStef]

Meanwhile most of the dutch people: "Our language is so difficult, I can't speak it myself"....

[@martijnhoogesteger4466]

The speaking is not the problem, it is the writing that makes it hard. Most Dutch people get a higher grade for English than for Dutch on their graduation.

[@Pjomp.]

Bro if u are in the middelbare school its pretty hard

[@MJ-rv5ri]

The writing is not hard at all compared to other languages, Dutch people just like to complain about it because they don't know the grammar properly

[@Jarito404]

@@MJ-rv5ri You're speaking for all of the VMBO'ers lol. But hey, atleast we can smikkel some frikandelbroodjes

[@MJ-rv5ri]

@@Jarito404 'Frikandelbroodjes in de bonus' is all you need to know to survive in the Netherlands

[@lynde-ht2kh]

'Het is een gestructueerde en goed geregelde taal' Mijn Nederlands lerares op de eerste dag: Nederlands is een moeilijke taal door de vele uitzonderingen. Ik raad jullie aan goed te leren.

[@Pjomp.]

Ja echt he

[@TheRealTricky]

Meer uitzonderingen dan regels als je het mij vraagt. Vooral in de verleden tijd... Ik heb me altijd afgevraagd hoeveel procent van de Nederlandse werkwoorden in de verleden tijd onregelmatig is...

[@roderik1990]

Is ook zo, maar tegelijk ook vele malen minder dan vele andere talen.

[@Eriquee]

ik zit nog steeds te struggelen met de d, t en dt

[@TheRealTricky]

@@Eriquee Ja, daar wordt ik af en toe ook gek van... Damn... zeg ik het alweer verkeerd! 😜

[@nados3258]

Fun fact: Dutch is the hardest language for Dutch people.

[@TheRealTricky]

Laten we zeggen... Nederlands is moeilijk voor mensen die niet goed na kunnen denken, want dat is in het Nederlands tamelijk nodig. Als je de taal van huis uit meekrijgt, zegt dat niet zoveel over hoe goed je kunt nadenken. Als je bewust ervoor kiest een taal als Nederlands te gaan leren, heb je dus al over nadagedacht, kun je dus blijkbaar nadenken, en sta je een paar punten voor. Dan lijkt alles een stuk makkelijker. Daarnaast, mensen onder taalgevoel doen nemen meestal de moeite niet om een andere taal te gaan leren, dat is namelijk essentieel. Slechts weinig mensen hebben taalgevoel en gaan echt niet zomaar een andere taal leren. Dat is voor Nederlanders niet anders, maar zijn zijn ertoe "veroordeeld" Nederlands te spreken en dan valt het meer op. Mensen die bewust ervoor kiezen een taal als bijvoorbeeld Nederlands te gaan leren hebben meestal al wel een goed gevoel voor taal. Dat maakt iedere taal een stuk makkelijker, ja, zelfs het Nederlands. En dan krijg je makkelijk een vertekend beeld. Yeah, I say this in Dutch... Dutch is an easy language for non-Dutch after all ain't it! And don't cheat with Google Translate!

[@twoblocksdown5464]

@@TheRealTricky Ahahahahah here you are again, pussy boy. I wonder if u are a vegan.... I mean your thoughts are as useful as a chocolate teapot

[@noiseflow4306]

@@TheRealTricky je gebruik woorden die de meeste nederlanders zeker niet zullen gebruiken bijvoorbeeld tamelijk en je maakt nog steeds fouten zoals "heb je dus al over nagedacht" is niet correct. Is nederlands je moeder taal of heb je nederlands lopen geleerd op school? zo nee dan spreek je uitstekend nederlands en moet ik zeggen dat je het erg goed kan spreken

[@chayatarenskeen3064]

Lang leven dislextie

[@SIG442]

For the Danish girl: Dutch and Danish are much closer then you realize, that's why your English sounds so much like a Dutch person speaking English. Same counts for Norwegian and German.

[@twilightzone7824]

Exactly. Out of all the Scandinavian (northern Germanic) languages Danish is by far the closest to western Germanic languages like German and Dutch

[@KorehannahBuitenlander]

Being a Korean native speaker, Dutch sounds like an alien language... Pronunciations and grammars do not make sense to me at all. I took the same beginner course& intermediate course two times and still ‘ik ben in de war!’ 😂😂😂 Learning Dutch will be my lifelong challenge. Those people who said “learning Dutch is easy”... I hate you and I’m so jealous of you😂😂😂

[@LeonKerkdijk]

Funny. We think the exact same thing about Korean!

[@KorehannahBuitenlander]

@Daniëlle Thanks! I still did not lose my hope that I can be someday very fluent in Dutch! hehe

[@KorehannahBuitenlander]

@@LeonKerkdijk As our mother tongues are totally opposite from each other lol. Oh wait! We do have the same sound word, which is opa and it means a grandfather in Dutch and an older brother/title for calling older males in Korean. Maybe it's not that far from each other :p

[@JJ-qc9ld]

the only Korean word, well part of a Korean word I can repeat properly after hearing a native say it is "yo" 😂

[@RedbadvanRijn-ft3vv]

Wel we Dutch learn English and German on the tv,at a young age.. If youre watching a Dutch spoken movie,with subtitles you would like. Ore a English movie,with Dutch subtitles.

[@MJ-rv5ri]

As someone who speaks 5 languages at at least B1 level, I can say that Dutch is definitely not on the hard side. T/d/dt endings have consistent rules and so does the sentence order (although this can be tricky). Dutch doesn't have cases (naamvallen), plural verbs are all conjugated the same way, pronunciation is straight-forward (though takes time getting used to), a lot of words are cognates to English or German words. It's basically German on easy mode. Compare it to Arabic, Russian, Polish, Mandarin, Hungarian and you'll start to realize that a lot of other languages are waaaaay harder

[@positivenergylife]

I’m a linguist and I can say that Dutch is easy is you start to learn it from the basics, later is like a tree :) you learn new words and you start to speak

[@sivaprakash9285]

the Pronunciation seems difficult though..

[@rabia8444]

Ofcourse the words are gonna be easy, thats a stupid mindset since its just memory.

[@radiomanjk]

There is alot of things you can claim about the dutch language, but you can't say it's a logical language. As a native dutch speaking person but also thinking logical all the time, I don't have much problems with understanding dutch. I can even work with all the exceptions in the language. But in all my life I was never able to comprehend exceptions to exceptions or exceptions to exceptions exceptions, and if I hear people saying the dutch language is logical I think I must have learned it completely wrong and should get this course myself. I for once want to grasp my own language and see it as a logical language, more than anything in the world, but I don't really think that's possible after almost 50 years.

[@CharlesvanDijk-ir6bl]

Lopen past tense is liep, the reason? Some words are relics of an earlier language. Denken en dacht some languages don't have a past tense like Malay. Denken is pikir in Malay and if your idea was wrong you say kira. By learning this Asian language the irregular verbs made sense for me. The past tense must have been introduced a few thousand years ago. We say liep because we stopped lopen en dacht because we changed our idea. Loopte and denkte sound funny and a Dutch person would correct you. languages are just fun.

[@Anne3097]

haha ja ik zeg altijd: Nederlands heeft meer uitzonderingen dan regels :D. Het is mijn moedertaal maar ik vind de grammatica en spelling van mijn andere talen veel beter te begrijpen.

[@ndjubilant8391]

I am so excited that I ran into two men, tourists, visiting my city, Ottawa, Canada. They were visiting from the Netherlands. I practiced my Dutch.

[@janverboven]

And then ? En toen ?

[@twoblocksdown5464]

@@janverboven I think that they had some rough sex in public

[@NickCraftNL]

Nou ja maar eigenlijk nee

[@thespiceboy5823]

Nick memes worden ze genoemd

[@jonathancorwin5133]

@@thespiceboy5823 racistische plaatjes over NIET witte mensen

[@sonik7777]

Nederlands

[@sonik7777]

#nederlands

[@Psimansingh]

Nou , ja , maar , nee are used in my Indian languages also Nou ( To) Ja ( Go) Maar ( Hit) Ni ( Abey) or No

[@Xralfixx]

Never thought about the politeness when it comes to our language and others 😂but its true

[@helmsylvanian]

Indonesian, speaks both Indonesian and English, learning Dutch, oh boy! Thank you Bart De Pau en Duolingo!

[@kleinespin1265]

There are a bunch of salty people in the comment section already. Why? These foreigners might just be comparing their experience learning Dutch to their experiences with other languages. The "difficulty if a language is very subjective; it depends on the mother tongue and the other languages a person speaks. For example: my mother tounge is English and my second is German. Dutch was easier to pick up for me than Spanish, simply because of the similarities it shares with English and German.

[@KorehannahBuitenlander]

Totally agreed! The level of feeling difficulties while learning a new language is up to what their mother tongue is. Having English and German as a mother tongue will be the perfect situation to learn Dutch I guess. :)

[@milagrosb.8230]

Yeah absolutely, my mother tongue is Spanish and English is my second language and it's a lot harder to learn Dutch than to learn Portuguese or Italian hahaha (romance languages

[@Magyarorsz]

My opinion of course, and the fact where you live also geographically also if your not hearing , speaking, writing dutch it makes even harder to obtain resources to learn any languages for that matter. language skills play apart as well if your naturally good at learning it and patience to do so you'll go far. so much more than just is it easy to.. it rather has nothing to do with whether languages are similar or not rather other factors that's either in your control or not. (about 50/50)

[@PaulRietvoorn]

THANK YOU FOR THIS. In the Netherlands, about everyone believes in the myth that Dutch is one of the hardest languages in the world. As a Dutch person, this annoys me every time I hear it. Most of the arguments why Dutch would be a hard language make no sense at all because most other languages have these same difficulties as well, like de/het and irregular verbs. The only fair point I've heard is the many idioms Dutch has. It's good to hear these expats confirm that Dutch is indeed a rather easy language and if there are exceptions those still have structured rules and are not completely random.

[@DezRosswess]

it's not just about learning the words, grammar and so on you have to be strong with the dutch at times, and tell them is no need to speak english back for an easy question or something like ordering a drink at a kiosk. I've done job interviews for technical work without a problem yet I still come across that at times.

[@jonardon8581]

Just tell them you don't speak english at all and just some dutch and you'll force them to use dutch, that's what i did when i worked in a factory in Zaandam.

[@georgestannard49]

THIS! Exactly this! Every time they hear an English or American accent, the buggers revert to English, no matter what! (I know they're only doing it to be polite, and to make things easier for you, but oh, my life! It's frustrating at times! lol)

[@YourFellowRNRSisterFan98]

Ik ben een Amerikaan die Nederlands spreekt, (niet erg goed in persoon) maar ik vind dat als je het leert en echt oefent, het een van de gemakkelijkste talen is om te leren. dat is mijn mening, mijn grootmoeder was Nederlands en ze had een mooi accent tot aan haar dood toen ik 16 was. Ik ben nu 21 en ik mis oma veel en ik heb opa nodig omdat hij stierf toen mijn moeder 10 was. dus ik denk als je echt oefent met een beetje vrije tijd en een digitale vertaler of zelfs Rosetta Stone (als je geen Nederlands familielid hebt wat ik deed), dan kun je het echt krijgen. That’s Dutch for.-I am an American who speaks Dutch, (not very good in person) but I find if you learn it and really practice it is one of the easiest languages to learn. that’s my opinion, my grandmother was Dutch and she had a beautiful accent right up until she died when I was 16 I am now 21 and I miss Grandma a lot and I need met Grandpa because he died when my mother was 10. so I think if you really practice with a little free time and either a digital translator or even Rosetta Stone (if you do not have a Dutch relative which I did) then you can really get it.

[@prestokrs1]

I've never heard anyone saying Dutch was an impossible language😂

[@asillycookie]

I takes 8 years to fully understand

[@MFV030]

Echt wel

[@TheRealTricky]

No, I hear them say that Dutch is "een onmogelijke taal".... But that has the same meaning

[@appleslover]

@@asillycookie German is a harder one but took nearly 4 years..

[@autismm]

@@appleslover wdym? german is like the easiest language to learn?

[@ariannagabriellegressiruiz4511]

I’m a Spanish talker and this is my 3rd language on learning and I find it very easy in some aspects: like the vowels, they’re the same as in Spanish. But as everything in life has its difficult degree: like the sentences structure, the verb goes at the end in most of the cases. But I’m still happy and sure I made the best choice with learning it...and please, stop comparing it with German, I’m sure they’re not similar.

[@francoperezlindo1405]

Hola Ariana una pregunta cómo lo aprendiste?

[@georgestannard49]

Yes, in so much as the language itself isn't too difficult to learn, no, in so much as when you visit the Netherlands, they all speak perfect English anyway, and when they hear your English accent they automatically revert to English so you can't practice your Dutch!

[@martspil9848]

George Stannard klantenservice

[@Pfirtzer]

Je moet dan gewoon Nederlands terugpraten en dat gaat prima.

[@amjan]

Nonsense. You just keep speaking Dutch.

[@georgestannard49]

@@amjan I've been going over there for 20 years. They hear an English accent they go to English, period.

[@Annatho-]

My friend on ps4 is Dutch and he's been teaching me alot 😄 im getting used to it alot

[@keemsosmirkish4335]

ik spreek vloeiend Nederlands en ik kom uit Californië

[@jaaptendijk7192]

​@@keemsosmirkish4335 How did you learn fluent Dutch and why?

[@keemsosmirkish4335]

@@jaaptendijk7192 my girl dutch bruh taught me everything💯

[@jdproctor7700]

I speak 3 different languages and am currently learning Dutch. As a Native English speaker, Dutch was by far the easiest language for me to pick up due to surprisingly many similarities. Especially in contrast to the other 2 languages I learned (Filipino and Gaelic).

[@tolmeijer]

Good for you but it's funny you decided to learn 3 useless languages. Except from the countries itself nobody speaks these languages. On top off that all the countries have decent english skills so speaking the native language isnt necessary at all.

[@jdproctor7700]

@@tolmeijer considering how I visit these countries often I wouldn't call them useless. Gaelic maybe since most Irish speak English. I only really learned it for cultural reasons. I play the bodhran in a local Celtic band here in NYC. I have a lot of Dutch relatives and while they're all fluent in English, it's cool to shit talk our non-Dutch relatives. Plus it makes communicating with the Dutch slightly easier in their own language. I plan on living there if this country continues to fall further down the drain. Filipino is a mixed bag. Yes the country has one of the highest English speaking populations in Asia but go anywhere outside of Manila and good luck finding anyone who speaks English well enough to tell you how to get around without getting kidnapped by crazy Islamist rebels. I lived there for 3 years, English is not as common in the Philippines as most people would like to think. It's rarely spoken outside any major city. You also have less of a chance of people trying to scam you, which I learned the hard way.

[@jdproctor7700]

@@tolmeijer I am currently learning Spanish though since most people mistake me for being Hispanic (I'm Asian and Jewish, not sure how I came out looking Mexican, the most common nationality I get mislabeled). I was conversational in Japanese during my teens because I visited Japan a lot when I did martial arts but you know what they say; use it or lose it. Most I can get nowadays is "how much is this?"

[@TheRealTricky]

I don't know about Gaelic, but when it comes to Filipino I cannot imagine it having much similarities with any European language. Not that I know, but I'm just thinking. Many people do consider Dutch to be closest to English after Frysian. This can be a curse as well as a blessing. German is closer to Dutch than English, and really also the reason why Dutch trying to speak German easily end up in epic failures. (Ich werde es doch probieren, und ich weiss dass ich Fehler mache, und dass deutsche Leute es lustig finde. Sie sagen dass ich gut deutsch spreche, aber ich finde es schwierig zu glauben. And I guess all Germans reading this are now laughing their asses off). There are some nice books called "I always get my sin" and "Make that the cat wise: stonecoalen English like you've never heard it before" which are full with mistakes Dutch make with speaking English showing the trapdoors of two similar langauges. I'd like to see such a book of foreigners trying to speak Dutch 😜😜 (There's also a book called "Lass mal sitzen" about mistakes Dutch make when trying to speak German).

[@puddyn9768]

Go maith

[@MrPleers]

Allemaal leuk en aardig. maar hoe loopt het nu af met Xing, Martin en Marieke ??????????????

[@BisayainHolland]

This is interested question,is dutch language is easy ,well in my opinion ,it depends to the person who actually learning the language,i mean no matter how difficult of not the language is but the student is earger and putting time to learn then i guess its not that difficult,its a matter of hardwork,its a matter of emmersion and exposure. I meet lot of people and they always told me learning dutch is difficult the most difficult ,and i said ja its true ,but to think other language like chinese,arabic,etc is more difficult than dutch. I been living now in NL since last year Dec ,and this year i dont go to school since school is so expensive ,luckily i got someone who help me with mijn nederlands les ,... So far we are now in a2 ,.. I speak the whole day nederlands,in my work,dutch radio,dutch news,everything in dutch so i guess thats really works great for me. Fijne dag!

[@michelleleo2505]

very curious to know what dutch language level these students are at right now.

[@acricucci9760]

If I want to communicate with my friends in Belgium in their own language, is Flemish Dutch significantly different from NL Dutch?

[@deni3597]

I would say it's the pronunciation that's mainly different.Flemish sounds more gentle to me than Dutch :D

[@kseniakosheleva5111]

How have I missed this one? :D

[@cristina_garcia]

I agree with the boy who says that Dutch is much easier than Spanish. As a native Spanish speaker, I understand him. Germanic languages as Dutch, English, Swedish, etc, don't have such a difficult grammar as romance languages which come from Latin. In Spanish, we have six forms in each tense of a verb. Each person has a unique ending in verbs, and six ones in all tenses. We also have two genders in nouns, masculine and feminine in singular and plural, and everything is in concordance with them. In Dutch, plural nouns are "de" words. It is much easier. And there are only two forms of verbs, one for singular and another for plural. Furthermore, we have subjunctive tenses, and you have to memorize which clauses they're used in. Another example of Spanish is that we don't have many structures with "to + infinite " . We usually make a subordinated sentence with a conjugated verb. And there's much more to say... You can't complain about Dutch. I started learning it two months ago and I did a level test two weeks ago. I'm almost in level A1. I'm studying to become a teacher of "Spanish as a second language" and I'll do my best to make it easier for foreigners to learn it. If I can, I'll try to make them have fun with me as Bart de Pau does. 😊😉

[@Emmiefnbr]

Haha stfu spabish is soooooo god damn easy I learned spanish litterly in one day and udtch in 7 years hahahahhahahahahahahahhahahahhhahhahahahah

[@ld.8446]

In Dutch, not every word is with 'de', we use 'het' also a lot, but I don't know a rule for that because it is my mother tongue.

[@cristina_garcia]

@@Emmiefnbr I'm glad to hear it. Hahaha Very well done, but it is the opposite to the things that my Erasmus classmates told me. My friends were worried for incoherences in grammar or bad spelling. My experience with Dutch is different. I'm enjoying it. I like learning it by my own. I have a few grammars besides the courses of learndutch.org and I find Dutch an easy and beautiful languages. Can I ask you where you're from? Maybe it's the reason why you think that Spanish is easy. I'm learning French and it's not difficult because it's very similar to Spanish.

[@cristina_garcia]

@@ld.8446 Yes, I know there are many words with "het". I meant that plurals are easier because there's only one article for all words. There's a reason why you don't remember any rule to use "de" or "het". It's because there isn't any rule for it. It depends on the origin of the word, its evolution and the way that Dutch speakers used the articles. In my grammars, it is said that I have to learn it little by little by heart. The article is given with each word so it is easier to learn. In Spanish, we don't have specific rules for it neither. In general, if the word ends in "a", it's feminine and it needs the article "la"; whereas masculine words end in "o" and they use "el". But there are lots of exceptions and if a word has any other ending, you can't be sure which category it belongs to.

[@Emmiefnbr]

@@cristina_garcia Im from Limburg it is a province in the netherlands

[@talvikko-]

I love dutch! It’s a special language🇳🇱🌟

[@Jesper0408]

No, even for Dutch people it's hard. Is deze zin nou de onvoltooide verleden toekomende tijd of de voltooid tegenwoordige toekomende tijd? En wat is de bijwoordelijke bepaling?

[@KorehannahBuitenlander]

This comment is comforting me! :)

[@applesauceandpeanutbutter]

fuck😂😂

[@suzan6592]

Naar mijn mening is het niet echt van belang om dat soort ongein te weten. Het gaat er om dat je het correct kunt spreken en schrijven.

[@lownia4798]

Maar denk je niet dat ze dat bijv. In het Duits hebben? Als je je Nederlands gewoon goed hebt afgerond moet dit prima lukken toch.

[@TheRealTricky]

Die zin is onvoltooid tegenwoordige tijd. Dus geen van beiden, daar het geen toekomende tijd is (daarvoor is het werkwoord "zullen" vereist) en onvoltooid (daar er geen voltooide deelwoorden zijn gebruikt) en "is" is tegenwoordige tijd, anders had je "was" moeten zeggen. En al ik zeg "Ik woon in Nederland" dan is "in Nederland" de bijwoordelijke bepaling (die kennen we in drie vormen. Lokatie, tijd en hoedanigheid). "Ik bel je morgen" => dan is "morgen" bijwoordelijke bepaling. Dat is niet goed gedaan = "niet goed" bijwoordelijke bepaling van hoedanigheid. Dat is overigens iets waarin Nederlands nog niet zoveel afwijkt van Duits en Engels. Als we het over tijden hebben. "Je zou een complexer voorbeeld gebruikt kunnen hebben." Die zin is al onlogisch als je van huis uit geen Nederlands spreekt qua woordgebruik en dan de tijd.... Voltooid verleden toekomende tijd. Ja volg je hem nog? Snap je hem nog? De term klinkt zo tegenstrijdig als de neten, maar vraag het maar na aan je lera(a)r(es) Nederlands.

[@BlazeRol777]

Dutch is a very fun language :D

[@KorehannahBuitenlander]

Any language can be fun to learn if enough efforts are spent on studying. :)

[@TheRealTricky]

And to speak Dutch in internet acronyms: Leer Nederlands voor de LOL! Anders ben je een LUL en krijg je van mij een LEL. Op Nederlandse les wordt wel BTW geheven. Have your internet acronym knowledge in order and you have a basis for learning Dutch.... Ain't that fun... or should I say "lol" :P

[@blackshadow6502]

I’m dutch and the problem is with people who are learning dutch is that the can’t say sounds like the k or the g they make the sounds like someone in England would do so that’s really difficult to understand for someone in the Netherlands

[@irfaanrahim4523]

I'm a native Afrikaans speaker and for me, it was easy, given that Afrikaans is so much more simplified although 90% of vocabulary derives quite directly from Dutch anyway. I'm also an English speaker, and that also made it easier to understand. I still have to really listen quite intently when I speak to a Dutch person. Reading is definitely easier than speaking. Somehow I code-switch between Afrikaans and Dutch, then the Dutch person is a little lost.

[@miyu_i]

Maybe it is easy to learn Dutch words or grammar. But the hardest part for me is the pronunciations. As a Japanese, it is difficult to pronounce G and other sounds which require a bit of muscle of my throat because Japanese only has soft sounds. I really think Dutch people have some equipments to pronounce those words😂 In addition, it is also tough to distinguish to pronounce the vowels...I think I would be able to understand Dutch in a few years (since I’m living in NL), but surely it will take more time to speak Dutch with ok pronunciation.

[@tulipslilly7857]

Can relate,the pronunciation is hard sm'(

[@rosalie6180]

I think the vocabulary is easy to learn because it similar to english but the grammar is more difficult like the het and the de

[@D20000]

french is way harder than dutch for english speaking people imo. We have to learn french here in belgium and dutch (german too for some people like me ) french is so much harder for me than english and german

[@angele_8855]

i already speak french german (+a german dialect) and english how hard do u think it would be for me to learn the dutch basics

[@angele_8855]

(i don't speak a word of dutch yet)

[@appleslover]

Not hard at all i knew German before dutch and often i would use it to try to understand new words and find the similarities Dutch and German is like Spanish and Portuguese Very closely rooted together P.S.: i am not a native German speaker to put things into perspective

[@CharlesvanDijk-ir6bl]

Should be able to do it in a year if you're an European language speaker. Anybody else add another year.

[@janverboven]

Charles, doe niet zo idioot. En wat is een ' European language speaker' ?

[@artifex2.080]

@@janverboven een germaanse taal ga ik van uit. Zoals duits

[@xposting]

how do I say goodbye if another sports team is about to get beat, how would you write in dutch Goodbye Sweden for example. I know Zweden is Sweden

[@RedbadvanRijn-ft3vv]

If the are our big German brothers,we wil sing that in German languages to them. German,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,Schade Deutschland - alles ist vorbei Dutch,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,Jammer Duitsland,,alles is voorbij.

[@kellyhendriks6702]

Try “Vaarwel Zweden, je hebt je best gedaan.”

[@nedtsui917]

I've always wanted to visit Amsterdam ever since reading The Fault in Our Stars. I don't know anything in Dutch but I would like to learn more. This video has been very helpful :). Anyway, if any of you are fluent in Dutch, let me know if you'd like to be language partners! It'll probably be one sided because Dutch people don't need help with English haha

[@veralenders2058]

What do you need help for exactly? I'd love to help you woth something!

[@nedtsui917]

@@veralenders2058 Hoi Vera! Hoe gaat het? I'm not really sure what I need help in haha. I'm a beginner so right now I'm focusing on conversation and pronunciation. I think I'd like to learn more about Dutch culture? I know they like the color orange a lot. Do you live in the Netherlands?

[@straystay7606]

@@nedtsui917 Hoi Ned! Wat heel erg helpt is het nederlandse alfabet leren zodat je straatnamen en plaatsen goed kan uitspreken. Vooral 'aa' 'oe' 'ou' en 'ui' (etc.) klanken worden vaak gezien als moeilijk. Het alfabet leren vanaf het begin helpt je ongelooflijk met uitspraak, geloof me! Veel succes ;)

[@kame9]

if the speaker speak any germanic language is easy. The guy said spanish is hard than dutch, but im not sure, at least for read is very simple, just 5 short vowels and read 1 by 1. Also spanish J is Same as Dutch G/CH ;).

[@peerhermans5604]

but like. long distance relationship is the same lenght as: lange afstandsrelatie

[@johnovermars5438]

But of course a "lange afstandsrelatie" is very much different from a "langeafstandsrelatie".

[@twanhams9199]

Makkelijk te leren maar moeilijk te meesteren

[@norwegian52]

I honestly don’t understand the people who say that Dutch is hard. It makes absolutely no sense. This’ people who say that Dutch is hard only consider the language from the pronunciation perspective. I’ve been studying Dutch for like a year and a half and I like the soft feeling and ease of the language

[@KorehannahBuitenlander]

Wow it sounds nice! Please, share me how you improve your Dutch in a short time! :)

[@denice.a3620]

I am dutch and I think dutch is difficult especially the grammer

[@norwegian52]

Denice. A in my opinion the grammar isn’t that hard. There’s a bit of memorization and stuff to do but that’s about it, And to be completely honest, grammar in any language is not easy

[@norwegian52]

Korehannah TV i’ve heard do a lingo is good for learning dutch

[@denice.a3620]

@@norwegian52 saying a sentence is not that hard but writing is a whole other level with dutch grammer but I guess they don't do that

[@Carebear_Pooh]

People keep saying that Dutch doesn’t have male and female words, but thats just not true. We do. It’s just not so important in our language, but it’s certainly there. Just think about all the different ways how we refer to objects or concepts, like “het kabinet en haar verantwoordelijkheid” with that said, it’s only something you learn once you get really into the language. We even have some german features, like “de man des huizes”

[@rosaliebosma]

Excuse me, but Spanish vocabulary is a lot easier, and the language structure is more logical The grammar is horrible, tho Edit: I forgot the fact that in Spanish, every letter has basically one sound. Words like "december" aren't in their dictionaries.

[@gachabonny8880]

Spanish is a latin language, if you already speak a latin language spanish will be easy to learn. For example the italian word "scuola" is almost the same of "escuela". Another example is the word "alma"(which is soul in spanish). Italians say "anima",although old italians used to refer to soul as "alma". So it really depends on what you can speak. I am an italian guy living in Italy who also speak English, I know what i am talking about.

[@rosaliebosma]

@@gachabonny8880 Yeah, I totally agree with that. Latin and French are definitely helpful, especially when it comes to grammar. And a lot of English words are the same too, and as I've been "learning" the language for six years, that can be pretty useful as well.

[@rosaliebosma]

@@somedude151 Really? In my opinion, it's not. But may I ask where you're from?

[@juanme555]

@@rosaliebosma French IS a Latin Language. He said Spanish is a Latin Language, which it is, you didn't understand it.

[@dahliadestruction7763]

How soon could I learn the Dutch language? 6 months? A year? Assuming that I'd be practicing daily for long long hours

[@gardenjoy5223]

Depending on your IQ too, of course. I know a Romanian man, who spoke better Dutch in a month, than I spoke Romanian in a year. And I'm highly gifted (compared to his enormous IQ I'm a toddler though). Average IQ and foreknowledge of English or German: with practicing long long hours, you'd be pretty good in under three months.

[@artifex2.080]

What languages do you speak. If you speak german or something of the like, in a year. Otherwise 2 years

[@juanme555]

If you're medium smart [90/95 iq] and your native language is Germanic (German, English, Swedish, etc.) You could learn how to read, write and speak proper dutch in about 8 months with 1 hour of practice every single day , but only if you apply yourself every single day. I know this because im Argentinian, natively speak Spanish and i learnt basic French in 2 months. Dutch and English should be about as close as Spanish is to French.

[@orsobruno7210]

It is so easy that they speak English In the video! 😅 Probably they work in a English environment that accept a A1 level. If you work and have 2 hour week to learn Dutch then is very difficult to reach for example B1 and C2 level

[@andreballon7362]

it is easy !

[@Careless932]

The last guy： What is the meaning of the word on your Tshirt???LOL

[@WHM2297]

It is “dream” in chinese

[@Careless932]

@@WHM2297 Yes. You are right. Its traditional Chinese character means DREAM!

[@orsobruno7210]

Laat ze nl spreken in de video. Ik zal hun zelf beoordelen.

[@mariadebake5483]

Beste Bart, waarom laat je je studenten geen Nederlands spreken in je video's?

[@CindysBisvlog]

Ik kom uit philippines and Spanish is makkelijk than dutch maar i need to learn dutch slowly because i am living with my husband here in NL

[@Mundodevideojuegos436]

Spanish is easier for you than dutch because filipino is more related to spanish than to dutch

[@fungkiediharja8162]

I'm Indonesian living in Amsterdam. And no, Dutch is not easy to learnt at all

[@LeonKerkdijk]

Is het wel!

[@cm-ut9nq]

@@LeonKerkdijk dutch is hard language

[@LeonKerkdijk]

@@cm-ut9nq No, it isn't.

[@cm-ut9nq]

@@LeonKerkdijk look ur name bruh, u were born with dutch language

[@LeonKerkdijk]

@@cm-ut9nq And the people in this video are not. Yet they say it's easy.

[@keemsosmirkish4335]

man dutch is hella makkelijk te leren als je moedertaal engels is, dat zijn feiten💯

[@kelsie.j]

Dutch sounds like what English people sound like to people who dont speak English

[@ingehendriks214]

I am Dutch

[@janverboven]

Euh, mensen, Nederlands en zeker Vlaams is een (en heel rijke) ingewikkelde taal. Diegenen die zeggen dat een simpele, snel te leren taal is, zijn totaal zot (gek). In mijn beroep kende ik mensen die na jaren nog geen deftig antwoord konden geven op een simpele vraag. En wat met de vervoegingen, de tijden, 't' of 'dt' - zelfs onze jongeren hebben er het moeilijk mee. En het is echt geen compacte taal, zoals Engels of Latijn. Maar er is een pluspunt. Met die rot taal en alle regeltjes kan je wel sneller een andere taal leren. Mijn twee jongens spreken vier talen. En als je brein nog meewil spreek binnen een jaar een taal waarvan je nog nooit gehoord hebt - heet directe communicatie als het er op aankomt. Als je brein meewil dus - dus best jong. For the others : Dutch/Flemish is VERY difficult to learn with this weird language - As I said, the only viable option is to get a friend that talks to you - in Dutch, on a practical daily basis.

[@artifex2.080]

De meeste nederlandse jongeren spreken toch al duits dus het is geen probleem als iemand eerst duits leernt en daarna pas nederlands.

[@lucasandre5255]

I guess I'll stop to learn german and change for dutch! Maybe dutch can help me to get some german vocabullary...

[@jakesoo9750]

What?? I don’t think dutch is easy.. well for me. 😅 but at least i can pronounce G correctly.

[@KorehannahBuitenlander]

lol I got addicted to the Dutch sound G and now I have a problem that I make 'G' sound for 'H' or other letters from time to time. >.

[@michavandam]

De muziek staat veel te hard!

[@alexhosten1508]

Honestly it's easy to start with but hard to master

[@indyola9738]

As a native English speaker, I find Spanish and French easier for word order. Much of Dutch is easier vocabulary though. And the pronunciation based on spelling is much easier than French, or English.

[@paullombard00]

Gelukkig voor ons, als het Afrikaans sprekers, is Nederlands niet zo moeilijk. Volgens mij, als je echt zin hebt kun je Nederlands leren in 5 -10 weken. But yeah, getting it perfect would take time. I'm going to go live in Amsterdam for a month and just refuse to speak English. :)

[@Anne3097]

All people saying that understanding a language is what's important: No. I can understand what my spanish friends say, but after 5 years I still can't really form entire sentences. So I can't speak spanish, simply because I understand it. Grammar and pronounciation are what matters. You can tell me you speak dutch, but if I don't understand a word of what you are saying, it means you can't. Simple as that.

[@fogacanaeuropa]

No way!!! It's quite hard. I've been studying for months and I can't speak yet.

[@TheTekknician]

Hailey, uh... Wauw :3

[@reznovvazileski3193]

It's easy to become coherent in Dutch but fluency is a bitch, most natives screw up grammar and spelling on a daily basis still. Once you get to the exceptions on the exceptions on every one of the many rules we have you'll start wishing you never started trying to begin with :')

[@lisanneb5646]

I am from the Netherlands and they are like W thell

[@BisayainHolland]

Dutch is more easier than arabic than japanese ,bcos since dutch is romanize letter its bit easier,japaans en arabische taal u need to study their handwriting! The tone and accents u can learn if u born in this country or u stayed for 10 years or more. Nou ja .. fijne dag!

[@ManicEightBall]

Dutch is like listening to AM radio at night on the road; a bunch of scratchy noises followed by barely intelligible English, followed by static.

[@Geert365]

2:59 , voor kijker rechts, lijkt beetje op Nederlandse, denk columnist of zoiets, die wat jaar terug wel vaak volgens mij op de vara tv voorbij kwam. grappig "misschien een lezer die net als die chinese, "Jaaaaahhhh" gaat zeggen erop. (zou wel grappig zijn).

[@Lisarata]

I find Dutch easy, though it's never easy to learn a language, because I learned Swedish and there are some semi and pseudo cognates.

[@hannahkwanten7975]

ik maak na 13 jaar nog steeds dt fouten.

[@23Daaann]

En ondertussen zegt elke docent tegen me, "gebruik een keer spellingscontrole dan zie je wat je fout doet.".

[@TheRealTricky]

Ja, maar dat doe ik als in Engelse teksten tik ook.

[@ILoveGrilledCheese]

As a Norwegian I find Dutch to be absurdly difficult and often nonsensical 😅

[@bklf.sander]

I'm dutch and I think norse not to be too difficult

[@artifex2.080]

Learn something like frisian (westerlauwers fries) first might be easier if you come from a norse background

[@nurui222]

Dutch should have become the lingua franca of the world instead of English because it is a lot more direct and explicit, which means it doesn't require a shared content between speakers.

[@CharlesvanDijk-ir6bl]

There is not a child who has a problem with any language. Even the majority of the handicapped learn it to an acceptable level. English speakers are already half way there.

[@waterkei]

It is easy? Many Dutch people themselfs still can't write without mistakes

[@theatomicwolf2975]

i heard someone from turkey they said to me that dutch sounds like chinese and i was like... what??? (btw im dutch)

[@marwanxmuscab]

IK BEN SOMALISCH EN IK KAN GEEN SOMLISCH MAAR WEL NEDERLANDS

[@VG-re1bj]

Easy and structured?? This must be a joke. For sure you can get that idea when you start with it and find grammar books summarized in 20 pages. This does not mean it is that simple and easy, it just denotes the difficulty to bring order to chaos. My problem with Dutch always was what I perceive as lack of consistency and patterns. Halfway the video and nobody made any comment about its chaotic word order in a sentence... what does not imply you are free to build them as you want! (nobody will easily understand you), it just means that any attempt to provide a consistent set of rules will be lost in a bushy tree of exceptions and possibilities.e.g. where do you place the direct object?, What is that "Er" word that pops up everywhere?, etc... Dutch for sure can be easier to learn for English speakers with absolute zero knowledge of grammar if they just absorb it from scratch like children do without tring to map or find references in their own. The shared vocaulary, cognates, innate familiarity with the total inconsistency in pronunciation and proximity helps a lot. Those whose mother tongue is more robust and structured and a lacks variety of vowel phonems (Spanish, Italian...) are going to find in Dutch a very hard bone to chew. Even once they can build correct sentences, due to the big divergence in pronunciation, they will rarely speak without a clear distinguishable hard accent and they have to tame their natural predisposition to build long sentences... like this one! Try it in Dutch!. Doing so in Dutch is a nightmare and also explains why Dutch people themselves tend to express themselves in short direct sentences. My very first advice to those that start speaking and writing Dutch: One idea, one sentence. Avoid subordinates, conjunctions... Always simplify and try to talk like a robot.

[@MrTomequ]

Ale deze taal zo makkelijk is, waarom spreekt dan iedereen Engels op het filmpje?

[@MichaelJarrae]

There are not a lot of words that are the same as english. I don't understand why people say that all the time. Its definitely more similar to German than english.

[@ricardonoexiste182]

Easy to learn ha ha ha sure, here living in Belgium for almost 9 years, and still struggling learning new dutch words every now and then, i started learning dutch like 5 years ago and still i cant understand everything, French i picked it up more quickly, and English also, my native language is spanish, Dutch is hard, the thing with dutch is the vocabulary, it has a lot of words that don't relate to others languages, like for instance you can say in Spanish continuar, in french continuer, in english to continue, but in dutch you say doorgaan. WTF That's why dutch can be kind of hard to master it, i can speak the other three languages with ease but when i speak dutch i always find myself like i,m a noob again, bc of the lack of vocabulary. But still i try to learn it and it seems like the never ending vocabulary learning for me. So yeah Dutch is easy HA HA HA :V

[@gardenjoy5223]

Spanish and French are both Roman languages. When England was overtaken by the French, a lot of Roman words made it into their language, about 30%. That's why it is easier for you. Fleur became flower (bloom before, like the dutch bloem). Think of words like house - huis, food - voedsel, cat - kat, plant - plant, red - rood. They share the same origins, like cousins. People who are native English, German, Danish and Swedish aren't having such a hard time as you are having. But now you try the arabic or chinese languages: those are difficult! Or even the finnish and hungarian languages. Wishing you well on your dutch studies.

[@lsaidane7851]

Who is that Danish girl?

[@nichiban3972]

Just a random girl dude why?

[@ZTRCTGuy]

The word order might not be that hard. but wait until you get to the spelling. Words with t, dt, d at the end. Including exceptions to rules. ''de'' and ''het'' woorden, most of the time there's no way of telling which to use. It's not that easy...

[@verysuspiciousstew5011]

3:14 the letter j:

[@leaminnaar9119]

Erg maklik maar ik is afrikaans

[@agnieszkavanheirreweghe5837]

Obviously if you know English, Dutch automatically becomes easier. Just like when you can speak russian, polish becomes an "easy language". It's just a perception based on the languages you already know. I find Dutch a difficult language and I'd rather take a French, Italian or English test over a Dutch one any day

[@Kikkerv11]

But you also know English?

[@jackfordon7735]

Waarom is deze video in het Engels? Zou het niet interessanter zijn als de leerlingen in het Nederlands (mss ook met ondertiteling) zouden spreken?

[@cheeveka3]

Dutch is doing similar what happened to English short of reducing the gender nouns be interesting if they stop gender nouns all together.😬

[@darkdragonkill]

its fun that they say its easy while butchering every word

[@eggboyssisterry2667]

If you are English speaker than is easy for you to learn Dutch 😅😅

[@Pr3d4tor99]

I think that what makes the dutch the hardest to learn is actually the dutch! I mean 80% of them are most just wobling rather than talking... Then how do you think that some1 can learn to understand dutch like this?

[@milagrosb.8230]

I love the "easier than Spanish" because I'm a native Spanish speaker lmaoooo

[@audigamer8261]

No, its hard especially the grammar

[@audigamer8261]

@v8Truckerchannelv8 what does waarom mean?

[@lilpasq5186]

@@audigamer8261 it means "why".

[@lilpasq5186]

@slangnocturno no need to attack him/her. Everyone has a different opinion on the language, plus he/she only asked why, chill tf out

[@lilpasq5186]

@v8Truckerchannelv8 okay

[@BlazeRol777]

Geometry Dash gang

[@noawilting1361]

It is funny that most of the people think it is not that hard to learn dutch but all the dutch childeren in school are like: The subject dutch is so hard and we dont get it and all those stupid rules😂

[@asillycookie]

Speaking Dutch is I think is easy (I am Dutch) but the Grammer and more you wanna speak it's sooo difficult Grammer in Dutch is the 3e difficult language in the world so don't easy about it

[@waterdrager93]

It really isn't . Most languages have strange features and the difficulty changes from learner to learner depending on their own mother tongue.

[@CharlesvanDijk-ir6bl]

Your English grammar is not up to scratch either.

[@defaultpixel1207]

You make no sense, 3rd most difficult, where did you get thay from?

[@asillycookie]

@@defaultpixel1207 I am Dutch hondenlul searh dom fuck

[@defaultpixel1207]

@@asillycookie the fact that you wrote 3e in stead of 3rd says enough. Here's your answer: www.babbel.com/en/magazine/easiest-languages-for-english-speakers-to-learn

[@resnonverba]

Compared to English and Spanish Dutch is difficult to learn