Comment by geoffbp
Such a difficult language to learn! I’ve been learning it for a long time
Such a difficult language to learn! I’ve been learning it for a long time
As someone who learned Dutch from scratch in adulthood, these points come up very often but I don't think they are true.
1) Dutch is not an easy language to learn if you speak English. Both the grammar and the vocabulary are way closer to German than to English. The grammar works in a different way, there is an actual grammatical gender, the vowels sound different, etc.
2) There is a lot of content to consume. Let's just start with programming oriented to older children, like the Klokhuis or Jeugdjournaal, which are both in simple language and interesting to adults as well. It's really all there.
3) when taking to people, they want to have a conversation and will switch to a language where that goal can be reached. If people consistently switch to English to you, the sad fact is that your pronunciation and/or grammar are not good enough yet, and you can't assume that the role of random people is to be your teachers.
I learned several languages as an adult, so I compare the effort needed to learn Dutch to the effort needed to learn a much more different language, like French.
1) Yes, Dutch is even closer to German, but it doesn't change the fact that it's very close to English. The grammar is very close, a lot of words are clearly related, learning to read Dutch when you are already profficient in English is a breeze. I never said they were mutually intelligible, but they are close enough to make the leap from one to the other much simpler.
Just as an example, let's consider three words from three different languages that mean the same thing: "gestolen", "volé" and "украденный". Which one of them is closer to the English word "stolen"? Not only in its stem form, but even in the way this irregular verb is conjugated.
2) Some content does exist, but not much. Again, comparing to a language with a much bigger speaker base, like French, let alone English. The difference is orders of magnitude, it's very noticeable when trying to find something interesting to watch or listen.
3) Every time I go to a country where English is less prevalent, I'm forced to learn and practice the language. The same pressure just does not exist in the Netherlands, and the sad fact is, people do not like making unnecessary effort. It is an obstacle and it doesn't help, no matter how you look at it
1) Dutch may be easier to learn for English speakers than, say, French, but it's not easy. Learning it to the point that you can have a naturally flowing conversation with a native is still very difficult for an average person. To go on with your example of gestolen, yes, that sounds easy, but it gets harder very fast. To use a horrible stereotype that is still a very simple sentence, Vandaag gestolen morgen in Polen is not easy to interpret even if you correctly deduce that Polen is Poland. Further, being a native speaker of another Slavic language I could guess what your Russian example mean, but without knowing, I wouldn't put money on it. Does brood mean bread or has it to do with brooding? Once you know, it's easy, but you still have to learn.
2) Obviously there's a huge difference in available content compared to bigger languages. But I do think there's enough, especially if you're not too picky (and you shouldn't be if your goal is to learn the language).
3) it is true that English proficiency is more prevalent in the Netherlands than elsewhere. People don't like making unnecessary effort anywhere, and even if they do, the conversation turns into a lesson, which is I guess not generally desirable.
I speak Dutch to anyone that serves me in English. Which is pretty common at bars or shops in The Netherlands nowadays. At first I thought doing that was rude, but I'm actually doing people a favor to have the chance to learn Dutch. We can always switch to English when it gets too hard or confusing.
And to be honest, somebody that refuses to even try to understand that "Twee croissants en een koffie, alsjeblieft" means "Two croissants and a coffee, please", but replies with "English please" instead can kindly go fuck themselves.
At least TRY
While I agree with your point, don't underestimate how different the pronunciation is between languages, especially if you have an English monolingual on the other side of the counter that is not used to ever hearing anything other than English.
Especially the word "croissant" is tricky. Chances are they they only got "koffie" in your example sentence and had no idea what came before it.
Honestly, the pronunciation in this case is probably closer to English than the spelling is!
I don't know any Germanic languages, but it turns out I can understand a surprising amount of Dutch just by closing my eyes and listening to the flow of the sounds.
Afrikaans is even easier, as I get the impression that the word order is almost always the same as in English, whereas in Dutch it sometimes isn't (I think... as I say, I don't actually know either language!)
Dutch is a very easy language to learn if you already know English. The main problems are the lack of content to consume and the fact that everyone in the country would rather speak English than tolerate your bad Dutch.