Before giving up on speaking Dutch, here are some things you can do

Learning Dutch can be hard. But don’t give up just yet! Albert Both from Talencoach has some handy tips to help you out!

Have you been learning Dutch for a while? Then you may have noticed that it is not that easy to stay motivated. Often, it seems that Dutch does not make sense, and Dutch people will switch over to English anyway. So why not simply give up? This would solve your problem, right?

But here is the thing: deep down you really would like to participate to the fullest in the place where you live. You would love to have great interactions with the people around you and you also realise that speaking Dutch will absolutely make life richer and far more interesting. So, if you’ve decided that you will not give up, what would be your next step?

Studying does not lead to speaking

A logical next step could be that you decide that, from now on, you’ll study harder. It sounds like a great plan, right? But here is the strange thing: studying more does not automatically lead to speaking more Dutch. Too often it seems that, the harder you study a language, the less you can speak it.

Then another tricky thing starts to play a role. Chances are high that you'll get frustrated, because the thing you want seems to be out of reach, and maybe you’ll start to blame yourself. But here is an important thing: it is hard to speak Dutch for real if you don’t feel good.

This is why it is good to understand first and foremost that it is completely normal that you don’t speak Dutch for real, even if you have studied a lot and even if you have done many other Dutch courses before. Once you fully understand this, you can feel good about yourself again, because contrary to what you may believe, nothing is wrong with you. You just need to change some ideas and some things that you do and then you too will get great results.

Now that you think about it, it is stupid!

Let’s start with the obvious: it is very hard to learn new things when you are not mentally alert. Many people plan their Dutch course after work, but if you do it after work, then chances are high that you will be too tired. On top of that, if you think that you could master a new language with just four or six hours of practice per week, you are mistaken. This was not how you learnt your first language, so why would it help you to speak Dutch?

Why do people do this? First of all, there is that time issue, and on top of that, many people believe that really diving in would be too overwhelming. That is why they think that if you do it slowly, it will be easier, but nothing is further from the truth. Imagine that you try to fill a swimming pool with a teacup. Sure, the process may look very gentle, but if things are going too slow, then results are always low. What you need is massive action, for a short time, certainly in the beginning.

Here is another trap: Dutch people love to believe that if you only hear Dutch and if people force you to speak Dutch, then you’ll pick it up automatically. Unfortunately, this is not true. First of all, you can never learn things that you do not understand. It is completely normal that you feel lost if people only speak Dutch to you, unless you can also speak German or Afrikaans.

The sad thing is that in many courses where they only speak Dutch, they will explain grammar in Dutch with words that even Dutch people do not understand. So once again, if you feel lost in such a situation, then nothing is wrong with you!

Have you come across these issues?

Here is a strange thing: you must have noticed that doing courses and lots of homework does not automatically lead to speaking Dutch. The good thing is that you will always have learnt something. Here are some issues you may come across in your quest to learn Dutch:

1. You are too serious, and you see learning Dutch as – a sometimes tedious – chore. You just want to get it over with, so that you are done with it.
2. You can only talk about very limited subjects that are often too superficial. Have you noticed that in many Dutch courses, you often only focus on one topic at the time?
3. You don’t know how to put a sentence together. When you try to say something, you think of the numerous rules that you have to apply and on top of that, you do not want to make mistakes.
4. You may know how to say some sentences, but it goes too slow. The moment that you say something, other people have already moved on to the next topic.
5. You do not know how to speak the language spontaneously. In life – luckily – unexpected things happen. That is why it is important that you can easily improvise.
6. You keep thinking in English. You may translate word by word or just use the English sentence construction for Dutch and this does not work, unfortunately.
7. You tend to overcomplicate things. You try to put too much information in one Dutch sentence, and this slows down your Dutch flow.
8. You are mainly focused on the mechanical part of learning and speaking a language and too often you realise that you are a human being with feelings and emotions looking forward to free self-expression.
9. You feel disappointed because the thing that you really want seems to be so far away. You think that speaking Dutch the way that you really want would take at least 10 years.
10. Somehow you don’t really enjoy learning and speaking Dutch. You do not really have fun with it.

Do you recognise some of these points? The good thing is that these things can all be changed, within a very short time. What you need is a couple of days in a row with some intense focus to turn things around.

Explore and experiment

The principle is really simple. Too many people learn Dutch mainly through memorisation, but this is a very slow way of learning. Whether you believe it or not, you can actually start speaking Dutch with some simple words and sentences.

Dutch and English have many things in common with each other and once you activate the knowledge that you already have, you can start learning Dutch at a much higher level. Instead of just memorising Dutch, you start to explore it, gently experimenting. You figure out what works and what does not work, and you start to unleash your natural learning abilities.

From the very first day, you can start by detecting some logical patterns, combining it with fun and with some simple rules you can discover for yourself. Then hopefully you find out that making sentences is actually not that difficult and expanding your vocabulary can be fun and easy. On top of that, you may discover that you can just start thinking in Dutch, so that you do not have to mess it up with translations in your head…

The most important thing to learn is how to feel completely at ease with yourself and that, if you simply have great interactions with real people, it is easy to feel motivated and energised.

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 – certainly with the most expensive ones – you’ll spend a lot of time in so-called language labs or with computers. But here is the thing: speaking Dutch is not a mechanical thing; it is about feeling the connection with other people while speaking Dutch for real.

Speaking a language is about freedom and self-expression! With some undivided personal attention that gently guides you, and the support of other people in a group, you can find out that speaking Dutch for real could be closer than you think.

If you want to speak Dutch for real, with real people and in real situations, you will need to know how to be flexible, how to have a sense of adventure and how to have real fun with it. If you like this idea, then a Dutch Brainwash course from Talencoach might be something for you. Within days, you’ll learn how you can bring your Dutch to a much higher level with some simple thought shifts. 

Learn Dutch with Talencoach:

• Download the e-book "3 Steps to Dutch flow"
• Download the e-book "Why You Hate Learning Dutch and 7 Secrets to Change It"
• Visit the website Talencoach.nl
• Check out the Facebook page
• Watch videos on YouTube

All free of charge!