I'm looking for a Dutch speaker can help me to practice language and improve it

When I started learning Dutch, I wanted apps that felt light, fun, and actually helpful. Here are the ones I use daily for both conversations and NT2 exam prep:

Conversation – Chickytutor, HelloTalk

Speaking is always the scariest part when starting a new language. I use Chickytutor to practice speaking sentences whenever I feel like it. It's nice because I don't have to be shy or worry about mistakes. Then I go to HelloTalk when I want to talk with real people. Sometimes I exchange simple phrases about the weather (a true Dutch topic!), sometimes we chat about cycling routes or weekend plans. Both apps make it easy to practice without too much pressure.

Foundation – DutchPod101

Learning Dutch basics felt less intimidating with DutchPod101. The audio lessons are perfect for my commute, and they build gradually from absolute beginner to advanced. I usually listen to one lesson daily and repeat the phrases out loud. What I love most is how they explain not just the language but also Dutch culture and daily life situations. The lessons feel conversational rather than academic. After a few months, I noticed I could understand simple Dutch conversations around me. It's become my main resource for building a solid foundation.

Vocabulary – Memrise Dutch

Dutch vocabulary seemed tricky with all those compound words, but Memrise made it stick. The app uses videos of real Dutch speakers saying phrases, which helps me understand how Dutch actually sounds on the street. What I love most is seeing multiple speakers say the same phrase - it helps me catch different accents and speaking speeds. At first, I thought the mem (memory tricks) were silly, but they actually work. I practice during coffee breaks, and slowly my vocabulary has expanded to cover everyday situations. The spaced repetition ensures I don't forget what I learned weeks ago.

NT2 Exam Preparation – Naar Nederland

When I wanted to get serious about the NT2 (Dutch as a Second Language) exam, I found Naar Nederland really helpful. It's the official preparation portal with practice materials for all exam components. I like how it covers real-life scenarios you'll actually encounter in the Netherlands - from doctor visits to work situations. The practice tests show exactly what to expect in the real exam. Working through the modules daily keeps me focused on practical Dutch rather than just textbook language.

Dictionary – Van Dale

A good dictionary is always needed, and for Dutch I use Van Dale. It's the gold standard Dutch dictionary and works offline, which is super convenient when I'm out and about in Amsterdam. What's special is that it shows common expressions and phrases using each word, not just translations. The pronunciation audio helps with those tricky Dutch sounds like 'ui' and 'ij'. I also like how it shows diminutives and plural forms, which Dutch uses constantly. It makes looking up words quick and comprehensive.

Reading – NOS Jeugdjournaal

To improve my reading, I check NOS Jeugdjournaal daily. It's news written for young people, so the language is simpler but still natural Dutch. The topics cover everything from Dutch politics to international events, so I learn vocabulary across different areas. I read one article each morning with my breakfast. At first, I had to look up every third word, but after some time I noticed I could grasp the main ideas without constantly checking the dictionary. It's a nice way to learn Dutch while staying informed about what's happening in the Netherlands.

YouTube – Listening & Review

I also use YouTube as part of my learning routine. There are so many channels where you can listen to natural Dutch conversations, learn grammar, or review pronunciation. I sometimes watch Dutch vloggers like Dylan Haegens or Enzo Knol with Dutch subtitles, sometimes structured lessons from Learn Dutch with Bart de Pau or DutchPod101, depending on my mood. Dutch subtitles help me connect the sounds with the spelling (those silent letters!), which improves both my listening and reading at the same time. It feels less like studying and more like browsing YouTube normally, but I still pick up colloquial expressions and everyday Dutch every time I watch.

Hi, I'm you learn Dutch and I want to listen to, to some Dutch music, but I don't really like what I'm finding.. It's all kind of pop and I don't know where to look.

My favourite bands/musicians:

The Red Hot Chili Peppers Hole The Mamas & The Papas Pearl Jam The Smashing Pumpkins The Beatles Metallica Green Day Lesley Gore Ella Fitzgerald Pink Floyd Mitski Verruca Salt Bon Jovi Tom Petty ABBA Alice In Chains Queen Radiohead bôa Lady Gaga The Vines

Hoi allemaal!

I posted a pronunciation check a couple weeks ago, and that was very helpful with all your comments.

This time I wanted to read a newspaper article - so that it is more of a daily language than a children’s book.

https://voca.ro/1a1vOEcRd0Cu

I would love to get your feedback!

Thanks.

Here is the text: Provincies mogen in de toekomst een eigen bedrijf oprichten om het openbaar vervoer te verzorgen. Daardoor zijn ze straks niet meer verplicht om de regionale bus- en spoorlijnen aan te besteden bij commerciële partijen. Een voorstel dat deze wetswijziging regelt, lijkt een meerderheid in de Tweede Kamer te gaan halen. Vooral in dunner bevolkte gebieden, zoals Drenthe, Groningen en Overijssel, gaat het al jaren niet goed met het openbaar vervoer. Bushaltes verdwijnen, lijnen rijden steeds minder of worden zelfs helemaal opgeheven. Reizigersvereniging Rover spreekt al langer over een "neerwaartse spiraal".

Hi. I’m struggling with surrounding myself with Dutch media as I’m having a hard time finding things that would interest me. Do you have any Dutch shows to recommend (preferably available on Netflix)? Or Dutch-speaking lifestyle youtubers (preferably women in their late 20s/early 30s)?

Hi everyone I’m Jimmy from the Netherlands. I recently got accepted as a Dutch tutor on iTalki, and I made a short introduction video where I speak Dutch, English, and a little Spanish.

My goal is to make it fun and encouraging for beginners, so I thought it might also be useful for learners here.

Here’s the link if you’d like to watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQo-BZPyNAQ

I’d also love any feedback from this community on how I can make it better for future videos 🙏

EDIT: the Italki link https://www.italki.com/en/teacher/28246216

Hi everyone! I have a Duolingo Family Plan and I need 4 more people to share it with. It's just 15 eur each.

• You can join me from anywhere in the world.

• The plan will expire on Sep, 2026.

If you want to join, please send me a message!

It's this image, which has fairly tame NSFW text and a bit of cartoony gore. I have figured out the meaning of "doen op z'n hondjes," lol. What I can't figure out is how we got to some dead puppies on the ground. Could anyone help me out? Thank you.

Why does the sentence “a big horse and a small cow” translate to “een groot paard en een kleine koe” instead of “een GROTE paard en een kleine koe”… I don’t understand. I’ve been grasping at straws here to identify any “rule” that would make this make sense. If it’s going to be “groot paard” here, then why is it not also “klein koe”? In both cases, I’m using a dedicated word to describe the size of a singular animal, and the word “een” comes before both words, these use cases are exactly the same as far as I can tell… It’s not like I’m saying the word “big” by itself, I’m using it as a descriptor for something else.

I’m assuming there’s just different rules for “koe” and “paard”, but I can’t figure out exactly what that distinction is

Edit: ok, from what I understand, the difference here comes down to the grammatical nature of the words “paard” and “koe” being fundamentally different in Dutch. For whatever reason, “paard” is a neuter (genderless) noun… this is why “The horse” is “Het paard” instead of “De paard”, which is what it would be if it were a gendered noun, this had already been made somewhat clear to me. The part that wasn’t made clear is that when you use a word like “small(klein)” to describe something, it becomes “kleine” UNLESS you’re using it to describe a SINGULAR neuter-noun/het-word (same thing) in which case it just stays as “klein”, and this applies just the same to all words which change like that when describing something else.

I'm a very noob dutch learner. (I went often to NL) I know some words thanks to the K3 songs a Belgian show for children. Do you know it?

My favourite song is "Alles kan in Wonderland" and the refrain

Wie groot is wil klein zijn Wie klein is wil groot zijn Wie breed is wil fijn zijn Wie vlieg is wil piloot zijn

Can you explain me the last sentence sense? Vlieg stand for butterfly?

Hi everyone, does anyone know if if I fail the KNM exam, the next time I can try it will be the same? Or will the questions be different each time than the first exam? Thanks.

Hello!

I’m wondering if anyone has any online Dutch classes they recommend in Canada. I ask mainly for Canada, so that there’s no timezone issues when it comes to scheduling.

I’ve browsed a few options online, but it would be great to hear if anyone had personal opinions or suggestions on some classes.

I’m not really looking for one on one private classes. I rather have others included to make it more fun and have less stress on me.

Right now I’m just using apps like Duolingo to learn some vocabulary.

Thank you in advance.

[EDIT] I should specify I speak both French and English already!

Looking for people to share a family plan with paid €120 for it so would like to split it up between other so that it would be cheaper for us all so it would be €20 a person, if you’re interested DM me:)

Hi everyone!

I’ve found so much useful info here on Reddit about the Inburgering exams, so I wanted to give back and share my own experience. Hopefully, this helps anyone who’s preparing right now.

I’ve been living in the Netherlands for 5 years. In 2023–2024, I took two online courses (A0–A1 and A1–A2). To be honest, they weren’t very helpful for me. I couldn’t keep up with all the classes and homework, especially when they gave homework on Monday and expected it back by Wednesday. It just didn’t fit into my life.

At the beginning of 2025, I switched to an in-person Dutch school. It was less intensive than the online classes, and I repeated A1–A2 there because my Dutch wasn’t strong enough yet for B1. After finishing that course, I took a 1-month break from studying. Then, on June 1st, I started preparing seriously for the exams.

How I prepared for the A2 Level exams:

Reading – Grade: 10

• Subscribed to Inburgeringonline and practiced all the questions.
• Did all the official practice exams on the DUO website.
• Important: I didn’t just “solve” the questions. I really tried to understand what the text was saying. I learned new words and sentence structures.

Writing – Grade: 9

This was the exam I was most nervous about, so I put most of my effort here:

• Finished all the writing practice on Inburgeringonline.
• Practiced with the example questions on the DUO website.
• Watched this YouTube playlist and studied the example answers. I compared my answers to theirs and corrected myself.
• Did all the practice exams on the AdAppel website.

Listening – Grade: 8

I actually took listening and speaking on the same day, one after the other. I thought I’d be too tired, but it was fine in the end.

• Inburgeringonline
• DUO practice exams

Speaking – Grade: 7

Speaking was a bit tougher for me. Here’s what I used:

• Inburgeringonline
• DUO practice tests
• Two YouTube playlists:
  • Playlist 1
  • Playlist 2
• AdAppel practice exams

KNM – Grade: 8

• Inburgeringonline
• A few videos from this YouTube playlist

I think as long as you study with the right resources, you can pass. Don’t listen to people who say you don’t need to study...You definitely do.

It took me about 1.5 months of preparation, studying 3–4 hours a day. I didn’t use anything else besides the resources I listed here.

If you have any questions, let me know! Good luck with your preparation. :)

Hi guys,

Am I hallucination or is the prefix er- sometimes pronounced with a d/t a the beginning?

Example https://youtu.be/wQsyFhdOgRg?si=1mJpUmO7jrOgav87 min 7:20 in „ertegen“

It would be consistend with its germanic cognates „da“(German) and „there“ (english).

Is it dialectal, or as I said, am I hallucination by hearing Sounds that aren‘t there😅

Thanks alot

Sou brasileiro e estudo holandês há uma semana. Estou com muita dificuldade, principalmente para fazer perguntas, e isso tem me deixado frustrado. Quero muito ser fluente, mas essa dificuldade está tirando minha motivação. Estudo sozinho, só pela internet e pelo Duolingo, que não acho muito eficaz. Se alguém tiver alguma dica, agradeço muito!

Has anyone had a good experience with Preply.com? I'm looking for someone to tutor me for the Dutch writing and speaking exam, based on the A2 inburgerin examns.

I’m currently an American in Amsterdam visiting for the first time and I sat at a restaurant very close to this couple. When the couple was leaving the guy nodded to me and said something that sounded like “It’s makker” to me and then left and I felt bad since I didn’t respond I just nodded and said bye.

Can anyone figure out or tell me what phrase he was saying and what I should’ve said in return?

Thanks!

hi!!! i’m an absolute beginner, but trying to learn to surprise my boyfriend and would love to start immersing myself in the language — aka give me good youtube channels (not specifically for learning/teaching, it can be vlogs or just silly videos. also give me music recommendations!! i really love pop music and folksy stuff but am willing to listen to anything!

if you have any other tips please feel free to share!

Not sure if this is the right sub for this question - But as I learn and improve at dutch, I'd like to read topics that peak my interest in Dutch. Obvious from the title, but if anyone could suggest or know of any books regarding philosophy that are originally written in Dutch I'd appreciate it.

I'm definitely not even close to fluent yet, but picking up information slowly in a book like this would be very enjoyable for me.

Hey all I’ll be taking the speaking A2 soon and I am wondering if any happen to have any tips with the new format?

I’m visiting my friend who lives in Amsterdam next year and want to know if there are any specific Amsterdam sayings that differ from typical Dutch. I just wanted to know for fun because I’ve been learning for a little half a year now and it’s just been the vanilla Dutch and sometimes when he speaks Dutch some phrases seem to be quite different.

Ik heb eindelijk een npo start-abonnement gekregen. Wat zijn jullie lievelings programma's? Ik hou van alles, van serieuze documentaires, Lubach, dramas/comedies series, reis programma's, tot super kut waardeloze reality-tv. maakt het niveau Nederlands niet uit!

I was born in the Netherlands, moved to the UK when i was 8. I used to be fluent in Dutch and then I stopped speaking it to learn English as a child, now i’m i32 and i’m starting from scratch. It’s a real pain! But more and more words are coming back from memory that i didn’t know i knew, it’s healing me! Even memories are coming back from childhood and a longing to go back to my old neighbourhood. Language is more than words - it’s a lived experience for all.