You cannot learn Dutch by speaking it!

And when you say ā€œI can understand, but I canā€™t speakā€…

You’re wrong. You donā€™t understand.

So how to really learn Dutch, the natural way? How to speak well? I will answer these two questions.

(Donā€™t worry: I know what Iā€™m talking about. As a Dutch teacher, I helped over a 100 students in two years reach fluency. And as a language learner, I know what you are going through: I learned English, Spanish, German, French and Persian to various levels.)

Letā€™s start.

1) How to learn Dutch?

Forget everything you know.

You do not need grammar exercises, vocabulary lists or Dutch courses. They can help, but they are not necessary.

So what is necessary?

Well, learning Dutch starts by learning words. But not the way you think. You do not memorize them. What you do instead, is trying to understand content.

You need to find a simple text in Dutch, preferably with audio, and try to understand it. Whatā€™s necessary is reading and listening to Dutch texts.

I will give you an example. Try to understand the following text:

Hallo. Jij leert Nederlands.
Jij spreekt Engels.
Jij spreekt geen Nederlands, maar jij leert Nederlands.

Do you get it? What do you understand?

Look at the sentences again, please. What do the words mean? What is the text saying?

If you now know that ā€˜jijā€™ means ā€˜youā€™ and ā€˜leertā€™ means ā€˜learnsā€™, you learned two words. So how do you remember these words?

The short answer is: you donā€™t. You will forget them. No matter how hard you try!

So instead of forcing your brain to remember this information it never uses, try to keep on reading and listening. Go to the next text and do the same: try to understand it.

Then move on to more complicated content, until you have read and understood books and grasped the gist of podcasts about topics you like. That is the long answer.

This way of learning is called the natural method.

It is a strategy of learning that has been carefully researched and documented since the seventies. It works very well. The idea is: you keep consuming easypeasy content in Dutch until you understand more and more of it. Then you increase the difficulty. Like that you know more and more words.

Because you keep on going, you will encounter the same words over and over again. This means you will forget them and then see them again, until you know them by heart. The good thing is, you donā€™t need to force yourself to remember anything. All you need to do, is keep on reading and listening.

You take a simple text, figure out the meaning, then go to the next one. You do this basically until you understand a whole book in Dutch. Then you know thousands of words!

You should begin your Dutch journey by finding an easy and fun text, with audio, to help you get started. Remember: do not do the grammar exercises. Just focus on the dialogues of the text book, and keep on going.

The second option is using my book, which I wrote especially for this purpose. More information on www.maxkoedood.com/neandertaalnovel. (Of course, I think this is the perfect reading material, but see for yourself.) The next question is:

2) How to learn how to speak Dutch?

Please look at the following fact:

Fact 1: You canā€™t learn Dutch by speaking it

Does it sound right to you?

It should!

You cannot even learn one word or sentence by speaking Dutch.

You will first need to hear a word, to say it. Or see it written down. But it is impossible to construct something out of nothing. You first need to understand words and phrases, before you can start using them or combining them into new phrases.

This is why you should spend 90% of your learning time on understanding Dutch, not speaking it. When you understand a lot of Dutch, you will also be able to use most of the things you understand.

Consider the second fact:

Fact 2: Speaking Dutch is the effect of understanding Dutch

Itā€™s true! Look at babies. They do not speak or understand. After many months they start using the language. First they sound pretty stupid. They only use words, not phrases. They make mistakes, they say funny things.

Just like you.

First you listen and read (you will learn faster than the baby because babies are bad readers) and then you start speaking.

You begin using words and short phrases. You will make mistakes. You will sound funny. That is because of the third fact:

Fact 3: Speaking Dutch is harder than understanding Dutch

Speaking is very difficult.

And your speaking skills change day by day. One day you have a whole conversation in Dutch, the next day you canā€™t utter a word.

Maybe you are tired, maybe youā€™re stressed. Sometimes you just canā€™t find the words. Just like in your native language!

So, focus on understanding Dutch instead. Make understanding the language your primary goal.

Your understanding doesnā€™t alter on a daily basis. Steadily you understand more and more if you keep engaging in compelling input.

And then, obviously, practice your speaking skills on the side. One hour a week, for example, is a good start. When you understand more Dutch, you can go up to two hours a week.

Hereā€™s a list of apps and websites to find tutors and language partners you can speak with:

ā€¢ Italki
ā€¢ Tandem
ā€¢ LingQ

And you can try out these ideas as well:

1) Google ā€˜language cafĆ©ā€™ + ā€˜where you liveā€™ and go to a language exchange meeting!
2) Start reading out loud
3) Start repeating things you hear
4) Find a Dutch friend and exchange voice messages

Conclusion:

To learn Dutch the natural way, you need to read and listen to a lot to understandable and interesting content, daily. By doing this daily, you will eventually be able to understand books and podcasts in the Dutch language.

The effect of this comprehensible input will be: speaking skills. But you will struggle when speaking, because it is very hard. To practice comfortably, try finding a language partner somewhere.