Learning to Speak Dutch

Remember that German you took in high school?  Oh, you didn’t take German in high school?  Well, throw away what you learned about Latin based languages.  That’s really only useful in Dutch with respect to medical terms like “dermatology” and “gynecology.”

Interestingly, although perhaps 90% or more of the people that take formal lessons in Dutch speak English as a second language, it has not seemed to occur to the Dutch to write textbooks in English nor does it seem to have occurred to them that you could start to teach Dutch with the similarities between Dutch and English.  This is a shame, because speaking Dutch is a little like speaking English with a strong accent, with a grammatical structure similar to that used by Yoda in Star Wars.

If you are going to live in Eindhoven for only a year or two, it’s not really necessary to learn Dutch.  Most people in the Netherlands with whom you will interact will speak English, unless they are really rip-roaring mad at you, and perhaps that it is a good reason to simply not know what they are saying.  Of course, if the classes are offered and cost you nothing, then by all means, get some words under your belt.  It certainly can help to not feel overwhelmed.  Note that Dutch acquaintances who speak perfectly good English may suddenly decide that it’s time YOU learn to speak Dutch.  They will announce, “It’s time for you to speak Dutch, so I’m going to only speak to you in Dutch.”  As an American, this might make you feel self-conscious and insecure.  You aren’t about to tell them that it is pointless to spend a year learning to speak a language badly when that language is spoken by only 24 million people worldwide, 18 million of which also speak excellent English (the rest are children or don’t go to the movies).  Just remember that this comment is a rite of passage and absorb that they like you well enough to want you to grasp the subtleties of what they are saying.

About Dutch Classes

Before coming to Eindhoven, it is important to understand what level of classes your relocation assignment will offer you.  In the Eindhoven area, there seem to be four types of English classes: the professionally offered, semi-immersion classes; inexpensive, local community classes; conversation classes by the social clubs; and one-on-one private lessons, either in your home or through an agency.

There are two sets of professional, semi-immersion classes with which we are familiar.  The first is the set referred to as “the nuns” in Vucht, north of Eindhoven.  The real name is: Taleninstituut Regina Coeli.  In this system, you take two weeks of classes that run from 8:00 a.m. to about 9:00 p.m. For people familiar with languages who don’t have to wonder what their children will be doing without them for two weeks, these lessons have been successful.  For others, such as my husband, who couldn’t take two contiguous weeks off of work and took the two weeks separately, it wasn’t enough.  The classes are expensive, and they can be very demanding and exhausting, as the instructors attempt to speak mostly in Dutch.  In one class, after people responded to a student with “Nee, hoor” and “Ja, hoor,” which is a polite way the Dutch have of saying “No, I hear you” and “Yes, I hear you,” one student on the verge of tears blurted out, “I don’t understand why people keep calling me a whore!”

In 2002, just after we arrived in Einhoven, some of the larger companies were contracted with Studie Talencentrum Eindhoven or STE, which is located on the south side of the ring in Eindhoven.  STE offered two types of initial classes, the intensive class and the cultural class, both of which supposedly covered the same material; however, the intensive class went at it for about two months, with two hours of classes per day and one hour (or more if you wanted it) of computer lab, while the cultural class went more slowly.  The textbooks were all in Dutch, which meant that as a beginner, you couldn’t read them at home without someone having told you what you were meant to do.  Another issue was that the computer lab had audio tracks that spoke at the rate of normal, conversational Dutch speed, making it difficult to pick out words in the beginning.  CDs were not available for Macintosh.  Despite this, people that were earnest about learning to speak Dutch did pick up a valuable foundation here.

However, we’ve found that people that have the best success usually achieve it through private lessons.  The group lessons tend to give you on opportunity to hear lots of other people butcher Dutch, so that can build your own self confidence, but the way Dutch is taught is so different than the way other languages are taught that there is little substitute to interacting one-on-one with another speaker in Dutch.  If you can afford him, I’d encourage you to contact STE and ask to have one-on-one lessons with Joop Huysoon.  Dhr. Huysoon studied linguistics and speaks several languages, so he understands why you make the errors you do, and he has a gentle approach that will work quickly to correct you.

In short, as for learning Dutch through a community class vs. a tutor, we encourage you to have very low expectations for a community class and higher expectations for a tutor.  Many women as well enjoy the experience of working with the conversation classes offered through the social clubs.

The following page has examples of Some Dutch Words