Learn Dutch for Travel, Work and Study

Dutch is written in the plain Latin alphabet, with “ij” treated as a single letter — capitalised together, as in IJsselmeer — and spelled far more regularly than English. Most consonants sound as they look. The exceptions are the ones that mark the language: “g” and “ch” are the same rasping sound from the back of the throat, “sch” is s followed by it, “w” is softer than the English one, and “ui”, “eu” and the long “uu” are vowels an English mouth has to be shown. Vowel length matters and is written: “man” is a man, “maan” the moon.

The grammar is light by European standards. Nouns have two articles, “de” and “het”, and which noun takes which has to be learned word by word; there are no cases to speak of, adjectives add at most an “-e”, and verbs conjugate simply. The feature that takes longest is word order: the verb stands second in a main clause whatever comes first — “Morgen ga ik naar Amsterdam”, tomorrow go I to Amsterdam — and moves to the very end of a subordinate clause, so a Dutch sentence often keeps its most important word for last.

Dutch has a formal “u” and an informal “je”, and the line between them has moved towards “je” over the years: shop assistants, colleagues and most people under fifty are addressed with “je” at once, while “u” is kept for officials, the elderly, customers in formal settings and letters. The tone of daily Dutch is direct — a Dutch “no” is a no, and praise is measured — and softened by the diminutive “-je”, which turns a beer into a “biertje” and a moment into a “momentje”.

The standard is shared by the Netherlands and Flanders through a joint Language Union, and the two sound different: Belgian Dutch has a softer “g”, keeps “u” longer and uses some words of its own. Within the Netherlands, the accent of Amsterdam, the long vowels of the north and the sing-song of Limburg are all plainly Dutch to a learner's ear; Frisian, spoken in Friesland, is a separate language. Afrikaans, in South Africa and Namibia, descends from Dutch and remains largely readable to a Dutch speaker.

Dutch sits in the easiest group for English speakers: the US Foreign Service Institute allows around 600 to 750 classroom hours to professional working proficiency, the same as Spanish or French. Vocabulary comes fast because so much of it is shared or guessable; the “de”/“het” choice and the word order take months to become reflexes; the throat sound is a matter of a few weeks of practice and a little nerve. Within half a year of steady work a learner follows the news, reads a letter from the municipality and holds their own at a birthday party — the hardest Dutch test there is, since everyone talks at once.

A visitor does not need Dutch anywhere in the Netherlands, in Flanders English works nearly as well, and in Wallonia French is the language to have. Residents meet Dutch in the places English does not reach: letters from the tax office and the municipality, the parent evening at school, the general practitioner's receptionist, the neighbours. Many companies and the universities work in English — Dutch universities teach more degrees in English than any other country on the continent — and Dutch becomes the condition for public-sector jobs, healthcare, teaching, the law and any role that deals with Dutch customers. The integration exam most non-EU newcomers must pass makes a basic command of Dutch a legal matter as well.

• Gezellig: Cosy, convivial, warm, fun, in good company — one word for the feeling of a good evening, and the first word a Dutch person will tell you has no translation.
• Everything gets a -je: The diminutive is everywhere and not about size: “een biertje” is a beer, “een momentje” a moment, “een kopje koffie” a cup of coffee. Leaving it off sounds oddly formal.
• Lekker: Tasty, but also nice, good, pleasant and well: food is lekker, the weather is lekker, you slept lekker, and “lekker bezig” is “nice work”.
• The Scheveningen test: The seaside district of The Hague served as a password in wartime: the “sch” at the start and the “g” in the middle defeat anyone who did not grow up with the sounds.
• Congratulations all round: At a Dutch birthday you congratulate not only the birthday person but their parents, partner and siblings — “gefeliciteerd met je moeder” — before sitting in the circle of chairs.
• Alsjeblieft: Please — and also “here you are” when something is handed over, so the cashier says it as often as the customer.
• Doe normaal: “Act normal, that is crazy enough” is the national saying, and it explains the measured praise, the plain clothes and the suspicion of anyone who shows off.

Dutch levels follow the CEFR, and two exam systems cover them. The Staatsexamen NT2, the Dutch state exam of Dutch as a second language, comes in two programmes: Programme I at B1, for work and vocational study, and Programme II at B2, the usual entry ticket to a Dutch-taught university degree. It is sat in the Netherlands, in four parts, and the diploma does not expire. The CNaVT, the Certificate of Dutch as a Foreign Language, is issued by the Dutch Language Union for both the Netherlands and Flanders, is sat at centres abroad as well as at home, and comes in profiles rather than bare levels: everyday informal Dutch at A2, everyday formal at B1, professional and academic entry at B2, academic professional at C1. Universities in Flanders generally accept the B2 and C1 profiles for admission.

The residence system has its own test. Most newcomers from outside the EU who settle in the Netherlands must pass the civic integration exam, whose language part is set at B1 for most routes, with A2 permitted where the B1 proves out of reach; the integration diploma is also what an application for Dutch nationality requires. In Flanders the integration programme asks newcomers for Dutch at A2. Employers rarely name a level: they say “fluent Dutch” and mean B2 for anything that involves customers or patients. With regular classes, A2 comes within three or four months, the B1 of the integration exam within a year, and B2 somewhere in the second year.

Dutch rewards self-study more than most languages, because the grammar is small and the input is everywhere: Dutch television subtitles its own programmes and all foreign ones, the public broadcaster puts its news online, and the children's news bulletin is the clearest Dutch a beginner will ever hear. A dictionary that marks “de” or “het” on every noun is essential; a flashcard deck that stores the article with the noun fixes the one thing Dutch makes you memorise.

For Dutch a tutor's first job is to be the one Dutch speaker who will not switch to English. The second is the “g”, the “ui” and the rhythm, which a learner cannot hear in their own speech until a native repeats the word back. The third is word order at speed — the verb pushed to the end of “omdat ik morgen naar Utrecht ga” without a pause — which comes only from conversation.