How to start learning Dutch: a realistic first month

You have moved to the Netherlands, everyone speaks English at you, and you have downloaded an app you already feel guilty about. Meanwhile the letters from the gemeente keep arriving in Dutch.

The problem is almost never motivation. It is that nobody tells you what to do first, so you try to learn everything at once and stop after ten days. This is a plan for four weeks, at twenty minutes a day, that gets you to the point where Dutch starts appearing in your real life.

The short answer: spend your first month on pronunciation, about 300 everyday words, the present tense of a handful of verbs, and basic word order. Learn every noun with de or het attached from day one. Twenty minutes daily beats three hours on Sunday, because language sticks through repetition rather than through length.

Someone preparing for the inburgeringsexamen, someone who wants to follow conversations at work, and someone who mainly wants to read their post are learning three different things. The exam needs all four skills to a set level. Understanding your colleagues needs listening above everything. Reading your post needs vocabulary and patience, and almost no speaking.

Write your goal in one sentence. It decides what you skip, which matters more than what you study.

They are being helpful, not rude. The way through it is a sentence you prepare in advance: Mag ik in het Nederlands oefenen? (May I practise in Dutch?). Most people happily switch back. Say it at the bakery, not in a stressful situation at the town hall.

Four apps and two YouTube channels feels productive and teaches you nothing, because you keep restarting at beginner level. Choose one structured source and let everything else be extra.

Start with pronunciation, before vocabulary. If you learn a word with the wrong sounds, you will not recognise it when a Dutch person says it, and you will have to unlearn it later.

The sounds English speakers need to meet in week one:

Your first fifty words should be the ones you will use this week: greetings, numbers one to twenty, alstublieft, dank u wel, ik wil graag, and the food you actually buy. Learn ik wil graag een brood, alstublieft as one block, not as five separate words.

From the very first noun, store the article with it: not brood but het brood. This habit costs nothing now and saves you a year of confusion later. Our article on de or het explains why it matters for the rest of your grammar.

Four verbs carry an enormous amount of everyday Dutch: zijn (to be), hebben (to have), gaan (to go) and kunnen (can). Learn these in the present tense before any others.

Regular verbs are simpler than they look. Take the stem and add nothing for ik, and -t for jij, hij and zij: ik werk, jij werkt, hij werkt. For wij, jullie and zij you use the infinitive: wij werken.

One quirk worth knowing immediately: when jij comes after the verb in a question, the -t disappears. Jij werkt hier, but Werk jij hier?

Practise these with our free hebben exercise and personal pronouns exercise rather than by copying tables.

Dutch word order is the single biggest difference from English, and learning one rule early prevents a habit that is hard to break.

The rule: the verb is the second element in the sentence. Not the second word, the second piece of information.

Whatever you put first, the verb stays in position two and the subject moves behind it. English speakers say Morgen ik ga for months if nobody corrects it early, so correct it now.

The second rule to meet in week three: after omdat (because), dat (that) and als (if), the verb moves to the end. Ik blijf thuis omdat ik ziek ben. Our word order exercise drills exactly this.

Week four is not about new grammar. It is about moving Dutch out of your study time and into your day, because that is what makes it stay.

• Change one routine to Dutch. Order your coffee in Dutch every morning. The same four sentences daily, until they need no thought.
• Read one real thing a week. A supermarket leaflet, a notice in your building, a letter you received. Look up five words, not fifty.
• Listen without trying to understand everything. Dutch radio while you cook. The goal is getting used to the rhythm and hearing where words end.
• Use subtitles the other way round. Watch something in English with Dutch subtitles, which is far easier than the reverse and builds reading speed painlessly.

Beginners waste weeks on things that can wait:

• The past tense. You can say almost everything you need in the present tense for now.
• Memorising all the de and het words. Learn them per word as you go, not as a list.
• Long vocabulary lists of themed words. Forty words about the zoo will not help you at the gemeente.
• Perfect pronunciation of the g. Make the sound roughly right and move on. Nobody has ever failed to be understood because of a soft g.
• Formal u versus jij anxiety. Use u with older people and officials, je with everyone else, and stop worrying.

The last five minutes are the ones people cut, and they are the ones that turn recognition into recall. Recognising de sleutel on a page is not the same as producing it when you have lost your keys.

Honestly: after one month of twenty minutes a day you will handle short predictable exchanges, shops, greetings, simple questions, and you will start recognising words in the post. You will not follow a conversation between two Dutch colleagues. That is normal and not a sign of failure.

A1 level, roughly "I can manage simple everyday situations", typically takes a few months of steady study. A2, the level used for the inburgeringsexamen, usually takes several months more on top. The people who get there are not the talented ones. They are the ones who did not stop in week three.

Start with pronunciation and about fifty everyday words, then the present tense of zijn, hebben, gaan and kunnen, then basic word order. Study twenty minutes a day rather than long weekend sessions, and learn every noun together with de or het.

It is one of the easier languages for English speakers, because the two are closely related and share a lot of vocabulary. The genuinely hard parts are pronunciation, word order and choosing between de and het.

Around 300 well-chosen words cover a surprising amount of daily life. For A2 and the inburgeringsexamen you need a few thousand. Frequency matters more than quantity: the hundred most common words appear constantly.

If you plan to stay, yes. Official letters, school communication, medical appointments and most jobs outside international companies run in Dutch, and it is required for the inburgeringsexamen and for naturalisation.

It varies with your background and study time, but several months of consistent study is realistic for most people. Someone studying daily will usually get there considerably faster than someone doing one class a week.

Apps are good for vocabulary and daily habit, and weak at explaining grammar and at getting you speaking. Use one alongside a structured course rather than instead of one.

Pick your goal, do twenty minutes today rather than planning a perfect schedule for Monday, and keep the article attached to every noun you learn.

If you want the four weeks above already laid out for you, our A1 course takes you from zero to A1 in 25 chapters, with everything explained in English and each new noun introduced with its article. The free exercises are a good place to test where you are right now, without signing up for anything.