Why Learn Dutch? | Easy Dutch 51

🔹 Rᴇᴄᴏᴍᴍᴇɴᴅᴇᴅ
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Produced by Easy Languages GmbH

Easy Languages is an international video project aiming at supporting people worldwide in learning languages through authentic street interviews. Our videos also give an opportunity to gain insight into cultural and social phenomena of different countries and peoples around the world. Our episodes are produced in different languages and include subtitles in both the original language of each video and in English. We also produce videos in easy and slower language for beginners, podcasts in the different languages of the project and additional learning material to provide a broader learning experience for anyone interested!

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Host: Jeroen van Heesewijk
Camera: Leon van Wijk
Edit: Timothy Höfte Diaz
Subtitles: Tim and Mario Tedesco

#learndutch #easydutch #easylanguages

[ramamonato]

I come from 'Dutch East Indies', now Indonesia. I live in Batavia, now Jakarta. Before World War II, the official language in Indonesia was Dutch. The Dutch had colonized my country for about three hundreds and fifty years. My first acquintance with Dutch language occured very slowly around 1986, several months before I learnt my first foreign language, English. In Indonesia at that time, people learnt English in the first grade of Junior High School. I have learnt Dutch since 1987 without any teachers. I was thirteen years old at that time. I was entering junior high school. My father gave me his English dictionary. It was small and old. I was happy, but not very because I was scared I could not make it. My father was not very friendly to me when I got bad scores at any subject at school. Later, he gave me a popular dictionary. It was a very old small book that many parts of it were cracked. I opened that dictionary and saw beautiful and chic writings, which, I knew later, was Dutch. Those words were unique to my eyes. There was a pronunciation guide using Indonesian spelling, and not with phonetic symbols like I found in English dictionaries. The spelling of that foreign language was regular, which means that the spelling represents its pronunciation, just like Indonesian spelling, which later I knew it was made based on Dutch spelling. Then, I fell in love with Dutch language. I could not do anything. I just read the popular dictionary during my spare time. In my father's shelf I found my father's Javanese-Dutch old dictionary. I opened it and found many words which I also found in my father's German books, like "der, des, den". One day, it being several days before Eid-ul Fitr Day, some of my father's students came to my house. They brought a big basket in which there were gifts for Eid-ul Fitr Day. One of the gifts I found there was a tin of powdered chocolate drinks. I saw various texts written in various language on the tin, one of foreign language being Dutch. I was so happy and took good care of it well. The tin is still in my locker until today. My love for Dutch got more, but I could not do anything. My father did not like Dutch and Dutch people. I could not ask him questions about Dutch freely. Initially, I read German grammar books belonging to my father because I could not find books on Dutch in local bookshop and because I wanted to learn German, too. I really wanted to know why "der, des, den" could be found in Dutch books, too. My having done so, many years after that, I learnt why the Dutch call their country "Het koninkrijk der Nederlanden", why the church is named "Het huis des Heren", etc. BUT, books cannot say anything, and I was not satisfied. My father had a cassette. There was a beautiful oldie, which, my father said, it was sung in Dutch. It was "Sonja" (De Four Tak). I listened to the song again and again to recognize Dutch speech sounds. It sounds like German to my ears. Then, I found Radio Nederland, Deutsche Welle, BBC and VOA on shortwave. I had learnt foreign languages since. I listened in to those radio stations almost every day happily. I relied on my observant ears to recognize each speech sound of each language. Then, I tried to imitate all native speakers I heard from SW radio stations. Sometimes, my mother looked at me alone in my sleeping room, wondering why I talked to myself and might consider I was crazy. I made lists and notes in my books. I compared speech sounds of the three languages. I wondered why they looked alike. Sentences like "What is that? Wat is dat? Was ist das?" were my favourites. I did not know much about Germanic languages at that time. When I was nineteen years old in senior high school in 1993, I learnt that there were Germanic languages, with English, Dutch and German being their members. Now, I am almost fifty years old. My effort in learning foreign languages alone without any teachers becomes part of my past. It has no economical value. It does not give me any money. However, I was happy.

[Antonioable]

I am a refugee from Ukraine.
It's quite difficult for me to percept the Dutch, especially when people speak quite fast.
But I've just started to learn it more consistently, so I hope with practice it will go better for me.
Thank you for your channel. It's an excellent opportunity to see how people speak in real life and what the traditions are in the Netherlands.

[heidiloesti]

Nederlands is een heel mooie taal. Ik woon niet in Nederland, ik praat met niemand Nederlands, maar ik luister vaak, bijvoorbeeld Easy Dutch, Colleges van de Universiteit van Nederland en ook andere universiteiten, ik lees Wikipedia in het Nederlands. Luisteren en lezen is niet te moeilijk voor me, maar schrijven en praten nog wel. Ik leer Nederlands, want mijn zoon gaat werken in Nederland, hij heeft al een werkplats, en hij leert ook Nederlands. Ik gebruik ook Duolingo.

[alisaaverina]

I am a russian student in South Korea and i’m learning dutch cause i fell in love with a dutch student. he left me after his exchange in Korea😂 but my interest in The Netherlands didn’t leave me. I found out dutch is a really beautiful language with a strong sound and i’m looking forward to be fluent in dutch. Honestly, i want to live in The Netherlands, cause people living there seem to be happy and satisfied in this country.

Also of course i have this dream cause that dutch man drove me crazy😅 wanna have more dutch friends

[Yakikitsu]

I recently came to Netherlands for work.
I already speak English, Turkish, German and Greek at a conversational level,
and obviously I respect my medewerkers that's why I'm learning slowly Dutch which will be my 5th Language

[karindiamond]

I was born in Nederland 65 years ago and lived here in Australia for 60 years. Brushing up on Dutch by watching you and watching Dutch news with my Dutch dictionary. ❤

[ebryan]

De eerste waarover ik van Nederland hoorde was over jullie fietspadden en openbaar vervoer. Ik kom uit de VS en ik denk dat je geen auto nodig zou moeten hebben om te leven. Ik leerde Spaans alleen maar 2 jaar in Amerikaanse high school en daar had ik zin in om te leren, maar daarachter vond ik het heel moeilijk om terug te gaan leren met Spaans. Hoewel wilde ik een tweede plus taal te kunnen spreken. Dus dacht ik, de taal van deze fietsende mensen moet ik leren. Ik heb een heel mooie tijd gehad met de taal en wil verder leren, en misschien om daar te verhuizen.

[metalhaze]

Dutch is also high mutually intelligible with Afrikaans, which includes 7M speakers. Hopefully you can make a video comparison between Afrikaans and Dutch/Flemish one day!

[djczanzibar]

I am South African and my 2nd language Afrikaans is related to Dutch. They are like cousins. I also visited Amsterdam some years ago, and really enjoyed it. I can understand a lot, but speakingis trickier, because I get confused with Afrikaans and German. I studied some German at university, and follow the Easy German channel. I also studied French in high school and university. Plus Italian at university. I also follow Easy French and Easy Italian. Easy Dutch is one of the better channels.

[katielarson]

My oma & opa emigrated to Australia in the late 40s then to American in the 60s. They didn't teach my mom nor my aunts & uncles Dutch growing up in the USA so I'm trying to reconnect to my roots. It's my dream to speak with oma in her mother tongue before she passes. Thank you for providing such an amazing resource! Dank je wel!

[SM-lqrj]

I want to learn Dutch because I was born in the Netherlands but left at a very young age. Unfortunately my parents did not speak Dutch to me as it was not my native tongue. Dutch sounds so beautiful to me and I would love to become fluent some day. This channel is motivating me to learn the language again.

[BLNeonblau]

As a German I guess I will have a slightly easier learning experience because dutch and German are quite similar sometimes. I love the sound of it and it brings a smile to my face when I hear it! That’s why I want to learn durch this year. Love it ☺️

[greenytaddict]

I'm getting better at reading and writing but speaking is a whole other thing😵‍💫

[sowhat]

How is it possible that this channel has not reached a million subscribers yet? So many people around the world try to speak Dutch!

[ubertuberd]

I'm glad I listened to the man at 3:30. I couldn't quite shake the feeling that most of the men speaking this tongue sounded goofy, but it sounded quite pleasant from him.

[nicolasderoose]

I always struggle so hard to start one of your videos even though I see them in my subscription box. But when I do watch one, I'm so glad to have this incredible resource for free!

[pbf]

Hartelijk bedankt voor het behoud van de Nederlandse taal door deze videos, jongens!

[gilbertsanchez]

Ik will graag Nederlands leren omdat ik nu in Nederland woon. Ik kan in Engels praten met de mensen maar het is belangrijk om de tal van de land te praten

[claudioristagno]

Ik heb vier jaar Nederlands met toeristen gepraten en heb de grammatica door een boek geleerd. Sinds 2 jaar werk ik helaas niet meer met Nederlandse en Belgische touristen...maar ik kijk Easy Dutch 🙂

[danamarcotteseiler]

I am studying Dutch for my own pleasure and the experience of knowing about the Netherlands, I admire their ways , good people of course there's good and bad everywhere understandable but I'm happy with my choice and interest, Dankje wel ; good video too.