My journey with learning Dutch
Introduction
Ahhh the Dutch, famous for its iconic landscape, tulips, being the best country in the world to cycle and of course. Max Verstappen. But the language has been the topic of discussion in many different forms, mostly being called a "fake language". In this post I will explain my journey with learning the Dutch language, how I fell in love with the country, with its culture and more.
Inspiration
2020, the year where the world shut down, we all wore masks just to ensure that we would be safe when going out. I think most people reading this can agree it’s a year we would all like to forget. Not for me, during 2020 I started dating a friend of mine, Amy, and as of the date of writing this we have been together for 5 years.
With my relationship taking off I naturally visited the Netherlands numerous times, I think at the moment of writing this at least 15 times. Visiting various different cities, activities even attending the yearly Koningsdag (Kings Day) which celebrates the birth of the Dutch King. Over time I have fell in love with the country, the way I describe the country to others is that they do everything the Brits do, but better. The layout of the roads, the convenience, the food.
After falling in love with the country, and my partner living there it became apparent that at one point one of us is going to have to move over there. I've made the decision that it will be that moves over to the Netherlands. So, after working out some details, it became apparent that learning the language is essential, so my journey started in learning Dutch.
Disclaimer *As of writing this post (Jan 2026) I am not living in the Netherlands, several personal factors have delayed parts of it. Hopefully within the next year or so. *
The big scary green bird
Learning a language is not an easy task, far from it in fact. When researching how to learn a language I became overwhelmed, so much to learn and so much to do yet with work and personal commitments I had to find a way to consolidate everything into one system and work from there. Introducing the big scary green bird, also known as Duolingo. You may have heard of Duolingo from their HIT song "Spanish or Vanish". Duolingo essentially takes learning a language and turns it into a game.
Duolingo worked for the first part of my journey, it taught me some essential phrases and wording, such as "Dankje wel" (Thank you), how to speak about the time: "De afspraak is om acht uur vijfenveertig" (The appointment is at eight forty five) and how to give directions: "Neem de tweede straat links en ga rechtdoor" (Take the second left and go straight). This was great for the introduction of the language, having some basic skills in the language allowed me to get around the country with a bit of ease, have some basic conversations and give me the foundations of learning.
But... the app gamifies the process, when learning through Duolingo it started to feel more like a chore, the streak feature made it feel like an obligation and the app would quite literally guilt trip you if you missed a lesson. After some time, my motivation to continue to use the app started to dwindle. In addition, I noticed the further you went into learning and some of the more complicated phrases, such as: "De woordvolgorde blijft lastig. Maar juist daarin zit ook de charme van de taal." This translates to "Word order remains difficult. But that is precisely where the charm of the language lies", when learning the word order it often came with weak explanations (sometimes none at all) that just made learning the language harder. It became apparent pretty quickly that I needed another solution.
Het fiasco van de woordvolgorde (The word order fiasco.)
One of my biggest challenges was word order, every language has it, but Dutch became a bit tricky as I continued to learn the language and progress. Duolingo was making me confused, it often didn't just teach me how or why the words are in the specified order. Additionally, it was often wrong *(See below how I knew it was wrong) * and this did two things: made me confused and when speaking to actual Dutch people; laugh. At least they were kind enough to help and correct me. I decided to go and learn from other sources, YouTube, alternative websites, books basically anything I could find I used to try and teach myself the word order, here are my findings.
1: Core Rule - Verbs come second.
In main clauses, the finite verb is always in position 2. For example:
Ik werk vandaag thuis (I'm working from home today)
Position 1 can be anything, subject, time, place, etc -- But the verb stays in second.
2: Basic main order clause
Dutch uses inversion in some cases, the order of such is:
Subject -> Verb -> Time -> Manner -> Place -> Object
For example:
Ik lees morgen rustig de trein een boek (I'll read a book on the train tomorrow)
3: Inversion
Inversion is when something will come first, for example if time/place/object comes first then the subject moves to be after the verb, the structure then becomes:
Time/Place/Object -> Verb -> Subject
For example:
Morgen ga ik werken (Tomorrow I'm going to work)
4: Subordinate clauses
Subordinate clauses are when the verb moves to the end, there are a few trigger words that cause the subordinate clause to come into effect, these words are:
1. Dat (that) 2. Omdat (because) 3. Terwijl (while) 4. Als (if) 5. Hoewel (although) 6. Wanneer (when) 7. of (or)
The structure now becomes:
Conjunction -> Subject -> ... -> Verb(s)
For example:
Ik denk dat hij vandaag thuis werkt (I think he's working from home today)
5: Multiple verbs at the end
When there is more than one verb, they stack at the end.
For example:
Ik weet dat hij morgen moet werken (I know he has to work tomorrow)
The most common order then becomes:
Ifinitive/Participle + Finite Verbs
6: Questions
When a question is being asked the verb then moves to the front of sentence.
For example:
Werk je vandaag (Are you working today?)
The order then becomes:
Question -> verb -> subject
7: Negation placement
There are two words for negation in Dutch. "Niet" and "Geen", depending on which is used the placement is changed.
For "Niet", it goes after objects but before verbs/adjectives, for example:
Ik begrijp het niet (I don't understand)
For "Geen", it is used with indefinite nouns, for example:
Ik heb geen tijd (I don't have time)
8: TMP Rule
The TMP rule references the "Time - Manner - Place" rule, when all there are present the order changes to Time Manner and Place.
For example:
Ik werk morgen thuis in Amsterdam (I'll be working from home in Amsterdam tomorrow)
As you would expect with all these rules, it’s a lot to learn and memorise. Even harder when you first start trying to put them into practice, to do this day I still struggle with forming sentences and speaking in conversations. Some Dutch people tend to speak faster than the Brits do so interpreting their speech can sometimes leave me in a lull of "I'm sorry I only understand 64% of what you just said". But you know what they say, practice makes perfect.
The new plan
After the fiasco of trying to figure out word order and realising that Duolingo is no longer for me, I cancelled my subscription, killed my 747 day streak and decided that I now have to come up with a new solution, preferably one that does not gamify the experience and make me feel guilty for not doing 1 day of lessons. This turned out to be harder than I thought. I thought at bout using a different app, I tried one called Babble for a while, it worked okay but again it was paid, it had a gamified experience (to some extent) and when I made mistakes it did the same thing as Duolingo did - made an annoying sound and didn't explain WHY it was wrong.
Thankfully, through the nature of my work I have a few sources for Dutch. My girlfriend Amy, a fluent Dutch speaker (while not originally from there), my friend Gerjohn, a Dutch native and his wife Julia, a Canadian native who was in the same boat as me, learning the language and moving over there. We have discussed at length at times of our struggles and ways to learn the language.
Julia shared her plan for learning the language, it consisted of three strategies combined: Listening, reading, speaking. Throughout the day you listen to some Dutch, you read some Dutch and you write/speak some Dutch, with the final part either being proof ridden or another one to ensure that it is correct. The first two parts are essential because it allows you to get use to the language, it helps you with pronunciation, for example in Dutch the letter G is not pronounced as it would be in English, see here for example.
Now for the first two parts one solution that we've had for years became the simplest and most efficient solution... NETFlIX! Netflix allows us to stream TV shows in a variety of languages AND with subtitles. My choice? Pokemon! While being a big Pokemon fan there is a Dutch cover of it, and Dutch translations provided, so this is a pretty effective method of listening and reading Dutch. However, speaking on the other hand, for some people this might be an issue. I have the advantage of working with a few Dutch natives and dating someone who is fluent in the language. This new plan comes into effect, but now I have another addition to the plan...
Pimsleur
Say that word 3 times fast, I dare you. Pimsleur is a method designed to build practical speaking and listening ability with minimal reliance on reading or grammar. Designed by American linguist Paul Pimsleur and used by the FBI, Homeland Security and many other government agencies around the world it is a proven method of learning how to speak and use a language. But what is it? Below is how it works:
1: Spaced repetition
You are prompted to recall words and phrases, with increasing time intervals. Seconds, minutes, lessons or days later by doing this it forces active recall and not recognition. The idea is if you can produce a phrase then you actually know it.
2: Anticipation
Instead of repeating after a speaker, you are asked to anticipate the response before hearing. So, for example:
Say: "I would like to eat now"
(Wait... and respond out loud)
Correct answer is spoken
3: Vocabulary focus
Pimsleur prioritizes high frequency words, sentence building blocks, verb forms that may unlock alternative variations. You do not learn large word lists but instead you learn reusable structures.
4: Conversation driven audio
Lessons are used in a structure, all lessons last around 30 minutes, they are mostly audio and are designed to be done while walking or commuting. There are no screens required, by doing this it trains: pronunciation, rhythm, intonation and listening comprehension.
5: Implicit grammar
Instead of focussing on the rules part first, the grammar is introduced through usage and teaches you to internalize the verb position, politeness structures and tense shifts. This allows it to align with natural language.
In short, a typical lesson might look like this:
- Brief recap of previous material
- Introduction of a new phrase
- Prompted to recall earlier material
- Guided variations of sentences
- Repetition at timed intervals
You often speak outlook for 30 minutes.
Now this works great, it is excellent for speaking confidence, pronunciation, listening comprehension, busy learners, breaking fear of speaking. But it does have its down sides; it is weak on reading and writing, explicit grammar understanding, large vocabulary expansion, advanced or academic language. Pimsleur should be merged with additional tools for learning, reading short texts is a great method for reinforcement.
Conclusion
In conclusion learning Dutch has been a massive adventure, lots of highs and lows and headaches. But it's been a necessary and impactful part of my journey to move over to the Netherlands. At some point I'll become fluent and be able to speak Dutch with ease.