Is Dutch harder to learn than other languages?

According to Marianne Starren, programme coordinator for the Master’s in NT2 (Dutch as a Second Language) and a researcher at Radboud University, it is not so much down to the language itself. Dutch certainly has aspects that many learners find tricky, but that does not necessarily make the language ‘difficult’. “How easy it is to learn a language is largely determined by the languages you already speak. If your mother tongue is Arabic, for example, you have to learn a completely new script for Dutch and are used to reading from right to left. But that’s not all: language is also closely linked to how you view the world.”

A language is more than just words and rules

It makes sense that your prior knowledge plays a role. Someone who speaks German will automatically understand more Dutch than someone who only speaks Japanese. But according to Marianne, it goes far beyond similarities in words, sounds or grammar. Your language also determines which concepts you are familiar with.

“In some languages, for example, ‘left’ and ‘right’ do not exist at all; instead, direction is indicated by ‘north’ and ‘south’, or ‘towards or away from the river’. If you’re not familiar with such a concept, it’s very difficult to learn how to use the words for it.” Another example is Turkish, in which the past participle has different endings. “These indicate whether you were present at an event yourself, or whether you know about it second-hand. In Dutch, we don’t make that distinction, which seems very strange if you’re used to doing so. Because you unconsciously rely on what you know from your first language.”

Germans have a head start (usually)

The closer your mother tongue is to Dutch, the more you can build on what you already know. NT2 teacher Bram Haverkamp sees this, for example, with German-speaking course participants. “For Germans, Dutch is relatively easy to learn because the languages are so similar. Take Dutch word order, for instance — a complicated matter for many non-native speakers. Whilst many course participants make mistakes such as ‘Morgen ik werk niet’, this is not something German speakers struggle with at all. Because it works exactly the same way in German.”

Yet that very similarity can also be a pitfall. Dutch and German are full of ‘false friends’: words that look the same but mean something different. “For example, you cannot translate ‘Ik werk in een winkel’ into German as ‘Ich wirke in einem Winkel’. That actually means something like: ‘I have an effect in a corner.’”

The more complex the grammar, the more difficult the language?

So can you actually say that grammar determines whether one language is more complicated than another? Bram: “Dutch no longer has cases, unlike German, for example. That perhaps makes Dutch a little less complex in that respect. But when it comes to verb conjugations, many people actually find English easier than Dutch.” Marianne: “There is often a certain logic to grammar. Once you know those rules, it’s not so bad.”

The difficulty lies mainly in the things we do intuitively. For example, when to use ‘de’ or ‘het’. “I always get questions about that in class,” says Bram. “But it’s not really that relevant for communication, because there’s no difference in meaning.” Marianne also gives positional verbs as an example: “In Dutch, something can ‘stand’ or ‘lie’ on the table; that’s very difficult to explain to non-native speakers.”

Sounds and pronunciation

Another challenge for many learners is Dutch sounds such as /g/ and /ui/. But here too, how difficult it is for you, depends on what you’re used to from other languages. According to Bram, Dutch actually has an advantage over many other languages: “We have a spelling system with a reasonably clear, fixed relationship between letters and sounds. As a result, you can usually predict the pronunciation of Dutch words quite accurately. In English, that’s much more difficult. Compare, for example, ‘though’, ‘through’, ‘tough’, ‘cough’ and ‘bough’: the same combination of letters is pronounced differently in each case.”

So all sorts of factors play a part in how difficult a language is to learn. Dutch can be incredibly difficult for one person, whilst another might find it fairly easy to get to grips with. Ultimately, this isn’t so much down to the language itself, but to what you, as a language learner, already bring to the table.

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