What cities speak Dutch?

Dutch is spoken in the Netherlands, Belgium (Flanders) and Suriname. Dutch is also an official language of Aruba, Curaçao and St Maarten.

Where do they speak Dutch the most?

They speak Dutch in the Netherlands

Most of the people who speak Dutch (about 17 million) live in the Netherlands. The Dutch language is a West Germanic language that is spoken by around 23 million people as a first language, and about 5 million people as their second language.

Is Dutch closer to English or German?

So dive right in and practice your Dutch with confidence. For the same reasons Dutch is the closest language to English, German is also a close language, and another one that many English speakers may find easier to learn. Dutch is commonly mentioned as the language nestled between English and German.

Is Dutch closer to German or Swedish?

While Danish is very close to Swedish and Norwegian, German is much closer to Dutch, and slightly less so, to English. But how close are the two languages really? Danish and German are both Germanic languages and share a lot in terms of pronunciation, vocabulary, and grammar.

How different is Dutch from German?

The languages: Dutch and German

Dutch is very similar to German, especially with regards to vocabulary, but the grammar is very different. It could be argued that Dutch has developed further and has become more simplified.

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Can you understand German if you speak Dutch?

If both (German and Dutch) would speak their respective "border" dialect, they would be able to understand each other pretty well.

Can a German speaker understand a Dutch speaker?

Dutch, German, English, Swedish and Danish are all Germanic languages but the degree of mutual intelligibility between these languages differs. Danish and Swedish are the most mutually comprehensible, but German and Dutch are also mutually intelligible.

Is it difficult to learn Dutch?

At first, Dutch might seem like a very difficult language, but it's surprisingly easy for English- and German-speakers. Dutch has even been described as a combination of the English and German languages! This makes it one of the easiest languages to learn for speakers of either language.

What language is most similar to Dutch?

Its closest relative is the mutually intelligible daughter language Afrikaans. Other West Germanic languages related to Dutch are German, English and the Frisian languages and the un-standardised languages Low German and Yiddish.

Is it easy to learn Dutch?

3. How hard is it to learn? Dutch is probably the easiest language to learn for English speakers as it positions itself somewhere between German and English.

Why do Dutch speak English so well?

Contributing factors for the high degree of English fluency are the similarity of the two languages, the country's small size, dependence on international trade, and the use of subtitles for foreign languages on television, rather than audio dubbing.

What language is most like German?

German is most similar to other languages within the West Germanic language branch, including Afrikaans, Dutch, English, the Frisian languages, Low German, Luxembourgish, Scots, and Yiddish.

What is closest language to English?

Except for Frisian, Dutch is linguistically the closest language to English, with both languages being part of the West Germanic linguistic family. This means many Dutch words are cognates with English (meaning they share the same linguistic roots), giving them similar spelling and pronunciation.

Where are most Dutch Americans?

In several counties in Michigan and Iowa, Dutch Americans remain the largest ethnic group. Nowadays, most Dutch Americans (27%) live in California, followed by New York, Michigan and Pennsylvania. According to the 2000 United States Census, more than 5 million Americans claim total or partial Dutch heritage.

Is Afrikaans the same as Dutch?

Although Afrikaans is very similar to Dutch, it is clearly a separate language, differing from Standard Dutch in its sound system and its loss of case and gender distinctions. Afrikaans was adopted for use in schools in 1914 and in the Dutch Reformed Church in 1919.

What ethnicity speaks Dutch?

There are around 23 million native speakers of Dutch worldwide. Dutch is spoken in the Netherlands, Belgium (Flanders) and Suriname. Dutch is also an official language of Aruba, Curaçao and St Maarten.

What is the hardest language to learn?

Across multiple sources, Mandarin Chinese is the number one language listed as the most challenging to learn. The Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center puts Mandarin in Category IV, which is the list of the most difficult languages to learn for English speakers.

What is the longest word in Dutch?

Officially, according to the number one dictionary in the Netherlands, Van Dale - which is also responsible for selecting the country's word of the year every December - the longest Dutch word is meervoudigepersoonlijkheidsstoornis (35 letters) which, when plural, becomes even longer: ...

What is Dutch language a mix of?

The Dutch language is a West Germanic language that is the national language of the Netherlands and, with French and German, one of the three official languages of Belgium. Dutch is also called Netherlandic or Dutch Nederlands; in Belgium it is called Flemish or Flemish Vlaams.

How long does it take to learn Dutch in America?

According to FSI (Foreign Service Institute), an American government institution in charge of foreign language teaching to American diplomats and officials, it takes English speakers around 24 weeks of intensive classroom study to reach a general professional proficiency in Dutch.

How long does it take an American to learn Dutch?

You can spend years learning a language and still find words that you haven't come across before. But as a general guide, the Foreign Service Insitute in the US estimates it takes about 600 hours of class lessons (or 24 weeks) for a native English speaker to become fluent in Dutch.

Why is Germany called Deutschland?

The etymology of Deutschland is pretty simple. The word deutsch comes from diutisc in Old High German, which means “of the people.” Land literally just means “land.” In other words, Deutschland basically means something to the effect of “the people's land.”

Do the Dutch speak English to each other?

Well, 90% of the Dutch population is fluent in English – the primary business language in the Netherlands. The latest EF English Proficiency Index even ranked the Netherlands' English as a Second Language Skills No.

How long would it take an English speaker to learn Dutch?

English speakers will need at least 24 weeks or about 600 to 750 hours of official Dutch classes to acquire fluency in the language. It's actually on the easy spectrum and is considered by a lot as the easiest language to learn if you know English.