Learning Dutch can be difficult. But don’t give up! Albert Both of Talencoach has some practical tips to help you!

Have you been learning Dutch for a while? So you may have noticed that it’s not that easy to stay motivated. Often it seems that Dutch is meaningless and the Dutch turn to English anyway. So why not just give up? That would solve your problem, right?

But here’s the thing: deep down, you’d really like to fully participate in the place where you live. You would like to have nice interactions with the people around you and you also realize that speaking Dutch will make life richer and much more interesting. So, if you’ve decided not to give up, what would be your next step?

Studying does not lead to speaking

A logical next step might be for you to decide that from now on you will study harder. Sounds like a great plan, right? But here’s the strange thing: studying more doesn’t automatically lead to speaking more Dutch. Too often we have the impression that the harder we study a language, the less we know how to speak it.

Then another tricky thing starts to play a role. Chances are you’ll get frustrated, because what you want seems out of reach, and maybe you’ll start to blame yourself. But here’s an important thing: it’s difficult to really speak Dutch if you don’t feel good.

This is why it is good to understand first of all that it is completely normal that you do not really speak Dutch, even if you have studied a lot and even if you have already taken many other Dutch courses. Once you understand this, you will be able to feel good about yourself again, because contrary to what you might believe, everything is fine with you. You just need to change some ideas and things you do and then you will also get great results.

Now that we think about it, it’s stupid!

Let’s start with the obvious: it’s very difficult to learn new things when you’re not mentally alert. Many people schedule their Dutch lessons after work, but if you do it after work, there’s a good chance you’ll be too tired. Plus, if you think you can master a new language with just four or six hours of practice a week, you’re wrong. That’s not how you learned your native language, so why would it help you to speak Dutch?

Why do people do this? First of all, there’s that question of time, and on top of that, many people think that actually getting started would be too overwhelming. That’s why they think that if you do it slowly it will be easier, but nothing could be further from the truth. Imagine trying to fill a swimming pool with a cup of tea. Of course, the process may seem very gentle, but if things go too slowly, the results are always poor. What you need is massive action, over a short period of time, certainly at the beginning.

Here’s another trap: the Dutch like to believe that if you only hear Dutch and people force you to speak Dutch, you will automatically understand it. Unfortunately, this is not true. First of all, you can never learn things you don’t understand. It’s completely normal to feel lost if people only speak Dutch to you, unless you also speak German or Afrikaans.

The sad thing is that in many classes where they only speak Dutch, they explain Dutch grammar with words that even Dutch people don’t understand. So again, if you feel lost in such a situation, then all is well with you!

Have you encountered these problems?

Here’s a strange thing: you must have noticed that taking classes and lots of homework does not automatically lead to speaking Dutch. The good news is that you will always have learned something. Here are some problems you might encounter in your quest to learn Dutch:

1. You are too serious and consider learning Dutch a chore, sometimes tedious. You just want to be done with it, to be done with it.
2. We can only talk about very limited and often too superficial subjects. Have you noticed that in many Dutch lessons you often focus on just one topic at a time?
3. You don’t know how to compose a sentence. When you’re trying to say something, you think about the many rules you have to follow and what’s more, you don’t want to make a mistake.
4. You may know how to say certain sentences, but it’s going too slowly. By the time you say something, other people have already moved on to the next topic.
5. You don’t know how to speak the language spontaneously. In life, fortunately, unexpected things happen. This is why it is important that you can improvise easily.
6. You continue to think in English. You can translate word by word or just use English sentence construction for Dutch and it unfortunately doesn’t work.
7. You tend to overcomplicate things. You try to cram too much information into a single Dutch sentence, which slows down your flow of Dutch.
8. You focus primarily on the mechanical part of learning and speaking a language and too often realize that you are a human being with feelings and emotions longing to be able to express themselves freely.
9. You feel disappointed because the thing you really want seems to be so far away. You think that speaking Dutch the way you really want to would take at least 10 years.
10. Somehow you don’t really like learning and speaking Dutch. You’re not really having fun with it.

Do you recognize any of these points? The good news is that all of this can be changed in a very short time. What you need is a few straight days of intense focus to turn things around.

Explore and experiment

The principle is really simple. Too many people learn Dutch primarily by memorization, but this is a very slow way of learning. Whether you believe it or not, you can actually start speaking Dutch with a few simple words and phrases.

Dutch and English have a lot in common and once you activate the knowledge you already have, you can start learning Dutch at a much higher level. Instead of just memorizing Dutch, you start exploring it, slowly experimenting. You discover what works and what doesn’t, and you begin to unleash your natural learning abilities.

From day one, you can start by detecting logical patterns, combining them in a fun way and with a few simple rules that you can discover for yourself. Then, I hope you will discover that making sentences is actually not that difficult and that expanding your vocabulary can be fun and easy. On top of that, you might find that you can just start thinking in Dutch, so you don’t have to mess around with translations in your head…

The most important thing to learn is how to feel completely comfortable with yourself and that if you just have great interactions with real people, it’s easy to feel motivated and energized .

Freedom and self-expression

Last but not least, I personally think that speaking Dutch is always a personal experience with real people. In many courses – especially the more expensive ones – you will spend a lot of time in so-called language laboratories or with computers. But here’s the thing: speaking Dutch isn’t a mechanical thing; it’s about feeling the connection with others while actually speaking Dutch.

Speaking a language is a question of freedom and self-expression! With unwavering personal attention gently guiding you and support from others in the group, you’ll find that speaking Dutch for real might be closer than you think.

If you want to speak Dutch for real, with real people and in real situations, you’ll need to be flexible, have a sense of adventure and really have fun. If you like this idea, then a Brainwashing course in Dutch from Talencoach might be something for you. In just a few days you will learn how to take your Dutch to a much higher level with a few simple thought changes.

Learn Dutch with Talencoach:

All for free!