Is Dutch really that difficult?
"Dutch is impossible to learn, it's completely different from English, the grammar is very complicated, the Dutch sounds are impossible to pronounce and, after all, you don't really need Dutch if you're living in the Netherlands, because they all speak perfect English." That's what your English speaking friends may tell you. Moreover, many Dutch people will try to convince you that their language is one of the most difficult ones in the world. Consequently, Boucke and White, writers of The Undutchables concluded: "the more you try to learn Dutch, the more the Dutch refuse to speak Dutch to you, and the more they complain that you haven't learned it."
However, in fact Dutch is not that difficult: the grammar is relatively simple, Dutch is very similar to English, and it is very important to be able to communicate in Dutch if you want to make your stay in the Netherlands more worth while.
This article was first published in the ACCESS Newsletter in The Hague in 1995
Grammar
Both Dutch and English have over the centuries thrown most of their grammatical complexities overboard. English is without doubt the simplest European language. There's only one definite article (the), whereas in Dutch there are two (de, het). French, however, has three (le, la, les) and German has six (der, des, dem, den, die, das), due to the case-system. And if you think German, with four cases, is difficult, try Finnish with more than ten cases. This case-system has almost completely disappeared from English and Dutch. As a result English nouns and adjectives have dropped their endings, and most adjectives in Dutch only have an e-ending. German adjectives can end in -e, -er, es, and -en.
Like English, Dutch has four basic verb tenses (I work = ik werk, I worked = ik werkte, I have worked = ik heb gewerkt, I had worked = ik had gewerkt) and most of the English irregular verbs are irregular in Dutch. With auxiliary verbs like can, may, must etc., the good news is that Dutch doesn't have the rather complex system of can/be able to and may/be allowed to etc.. And there's more good news: we don't use the verb to do in questions and negations (do you work? = werk je?, I do not work = ik werk niet). Nor do we use the "gerund" (I am working = ik werk).
In fact, the only real problem English speakers face when learning Dutch is word order. Like in English, the basic sentence structure is Subject - Verb - Object (I see a film = ik zie een film). But we're in for some trouble. The first problem is that if a sentence doesn't start with the subject, subject and verb change places (on Saturday I see a film = op zaterdag zie ik een film).
Another thing is that the Dutch like to fling their verbs to the end of the sentence. Infinitives and past participles, for instance, are always at the end, and in sub-clauses all verbs are at the end.
This "Dutch" sentence structure was still present in Shakespeare's English: Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended (past participle at the end), What said he? (no to do in questions) or Then goes he to the length of all his arm, and Long stayed he so (inversion).
Pronunciation & Spelling
"Dutch pronunciation is impossible, it will give you a throat ache, and some of the sounds can only be pronounced with your mouth half-full of pea-soup."
In fact there are only a few sounds in Dutch that don't exist in English. One of these sounds is indeed the g/ch sound. But if you're from Scotland (cf. loch), or if you can make a spitting sound, you can also say ggg.
Fortunately, Dutch spelling is highly phonetic. What you see is what you pronounce. English spelling, however, is very inconsistent. A combination of two vowels can sometimes be pronounced in four different ways: ea is a different sound in learn, neat, head and great. Dutch would have four different spellings: u, ie, e and ee.
The Irish writer Shaw proved it was possible to pronounce ghotigh as fish (enough, women, nation, though).
In English you will have to learn the pronunciation of every single word, whereas in Dutch, if you know a few basic spelling and pronunciation rules, you can nearly always deduce the correct pronunciation.
History
You'll be surprised to hear that your problems with Dutch word order and pronunciation were in fact caused by the development of the English language.
After the withdrawal of the Romans in the 5th century, the Celtic king Vortigern entered into an agreement with a few Germanic mercenaries and asked them to help him drive out the Scots and the Picts. But after doing so the continental tribes decided to stay. From the 5th century onwards, English and Dutch were basically dialects of the same language, which explains why they share a basic Germanic vocabulary. Many Dutch words will look familiar to you because they are similar (cf. drink = drinken, sleep = slapen, sun = zon, moon = maan, land = land, father = vader etc.).
If nothing drastic had happened in history since then, we would still be speaking more or less the same language. So what happened?
In 1066 the French invaded Britain and the Duke of Normandy, became King William I. For nearly two hundred years after this invasion, French remained the official language among the upper classes in England. Although English remained the language of the masses, only in the 14th century English won its way back into universal use, but, by then had drastically changed and grown apart from the Dutch language. This transformation of the English language included: loss of grammatical gender, of endings on adjectives and nouns, and of inflections (cases) as well as an enormous influx of French words on the one hand and the disappearance of many native Old English words on the other.
Many Old English words that disappeared from English, however, still exist in Dutch: lichama = lichaam (body), gefaer = gevaar (danger), cnapa = knaap (boy), gesynt = gezond (healthy).
In the 15th century we encounter a phenomenon in the English language that linguistics call "the great vowel shift". This vowel shift is in fact responsible for this strange use of vowel symbols in English spelling: the aa sound from father changed to ee from name, the ee sound from mate changed to ie from meet, the i sound from bit turned into ai from knight. Obviously these are the sounds that English speakers have problems with in Dutch, not because they can't pronounce them, but because the English spelling doesn't reflect the pronunciation anymore.
Vocabulary
Nothing like the Norman Conquest or The Great Vowel Shift occurred in Dutch. Although from 1795 to 1813 the French occupied the Netherlands and French was the official language in that period, apart from importing a great number of French words, nothing drastic happened to the Dutch language. The history of the Dutch language over the last centuries is more a matter of lending and borrowing vocabulary. Many French, German and English words have been imported from our neighbours.
On the other hand it may surprise you that there are more than 2000 words of Dutch origin in English, many of them from the 17th century when the Dutch sailed all over the world attempting to acquire more colonies. Many words from the maritime trade (dok = dock, boei = buoy, wijting = whiting, jacht = yacht, vracht = freight, kielhalen = keelhaul), from painting (ezel = easel, landschap = landscape, ets = etch, schets = sketch) are of Dutch origin. The Dutch assisted the English in the American Liberation War and left words like koekje (= cookie), koolsla (= coleslaw), Yankees (from Jan and Kees) and daalder (now dollar).
In South Africa, also a former Dutch colony, the Dutch left a whole language, Afrikaans, based on 17th Century Dutch and since then quite simplified. Famous words: aardvarken (the first word in most English dictionaries), boer (= farmer), baas (= boss), and (unfortunately) the most famous Dutch word all over the world: apartheid.
Why wait any longer?
We have seen that there are many similarities in Dutch and English, that the grammar is relatively simple, and that with a few pronunciation rules you will be able to deduce the correct pronunciation. Our final question then is: is it really necessary to learn Dutch?
Yes. First of all, even a little knowledge of the Dutch language will provide many practical advantages in everyday life. You will be able to read things in the street. You will find out that doorgaand verkeer, a word seen on many traffic signs, is not a Dutch village, but means through traffic. Shopping will be much easier if you can speak and read some Dutch. In the beginning you'll see that it is indeed possible to get by with English. But even though shopkeepers, for instance, will speak English to you in the beginning, most of them will sort of expect you to speak some Dutch after a while. Especially in simple situations like going to the shop.
And how about social life? If you go to a Dutch party, they may speak English to you in the beginning, but as soon as they want to tell a joke they'll switch to Dutch. You won't understand them and you can't say anything. After a while you won't be invited to Dutch parties anymore. If you speak some Dutch, however, you'll be able to communicate with them. Don't forget that you don't have to speak a language perfectly to be able to communicate. The Dutch also make mistakes when they speak English. Their problems: word order and pronunciation/spelling.
Apart from practical and social advantages, there'll be cultural advantages. Just imagine being able to understand a Dutch newspaper or magazine, or Dutch television. The vocabulary will give you an insight into Dutch society and its inhabitants.
Because we are such a small nation, we use many diminutives (beetje, meisje, vorkje, dorpje). Because there is so much water and because there are so many windmills, wooden shoes, flowers, and bicycles, we have many expressions with these words (e.g. hij heeft een klap van de molen = he is crazy, lit.: he was hit by a windmill; wat heb ik nou aan mijn fiets hangen? = what kind of a mess am I in now? lit.: what's hanging on my bike now?).
There are more words that are typically Dutch and are important to know such as gezellig for cosy, leuk and lekker for nice. The Dutch slogan zuinigheid en vlijt (lit.: thrift/economy and industry/diligence) comes from Calvinism and makes you understand why the Dutch are known as hard-working but also as stingy. The word verzuiling (lit.: "pillarization") is essential for understanding the Dutch national character. You can still see the remnants of the Roman Catholic, Protestant, Socialist, and Conservative "pillars" in names of Dutch schools, broadcasting corporations, newspapers, political parties and so on.
Conclusion
Hopefully it has become clear to you that Dutch is not as difficult as many people say it is. The grammar is second to English in its simplicity, the spelling is very regular, and we share a large number of Germanic words. The advantages of even a little knowledge of Dutch are obvious.
Of course it will take a longer time to gain a complete mastery of the language. But a working knowledge - enough to read newspapers, chat with Dutch people on the street, in shops or at work, or even read a Dutch novel - is well within the grasp of any foreigner spending a few years here and who has a few hours a week to spare for language study plus some opportunity to put it into practice.
