Learning Dutch, hmm? Good on ya! It’s a gorgeous language, once you get to know it a little. It’s also a bit of a tricky one, there’s no doubt about that. Dutch has been around for a long time, and it has a lot of ancient grammar and spelling rules that aren’t always perfectly clear – not even to native speakers.
That’s where DutchDabbles comes in. I’ve created this website to help folks who are trying to learn Dutch by explaining some of the odd stuff in a, hopefully, natural, instinctive way. I’ll be talking about purely grammatical and spelling stuff like verb conjugation, plurals, certain word types and so on, but I’ll also try to dive into some of the strange, hard-to-explain words or phrases you might hear while talking with a Dutch person.
The idea for DutchDabbles arose while I was having some conversations with people from Tandem, the language learning app you’re probably familiar with. I mainly use it to learn Spanish, but I also love helping out others by explaining why certain things in Dutch work the way they do – and soon found out that’s not an easy feat at all.
The deeper I dove into the rules of grammar and spelling, the more confused I grew myself. Dutch truly is a strange language, but thankfully, there’s (some, at least) method to the all the madness. DutchDabbles is all about finding that method, to teach learners of our beautiful language not only the correct ways of doing things, but also why we do it that way. I hope this will help you to understand these methods a bit better, which will ultimately help you speak Dutch in a more natural manner.
About me
My name is Daan, and I’m a born-and-raised Dutchman. I’ve always been fond of languages, not in the last place the one I’m most familiar with: Dutch. I’m always intrigued by the tiny little rules and features, and about why things are the way they are.
I have been an online editor and journalist for about ten years now, the past few years as a freelancer. My main field of expertise is consumer tech, but I love branching out into popular science, sports, and other topics. DutchDabbles is my way of branching out into the subject of language, and it’s my most recent endeavor.
Obviously, this website is in English. While I’m not even remotely going to claim I’m fluent in it, I have always been trying to improve my skills, and I think I’m proficient enough to be able to explain some of the finer details about the Dutch language, in English. You might run into some oddities or blatant mistakes, but hey, we’re both all about learning languages, aren’t we?
If you wish to contact me, if you have a specific topic you’d like to know more about, or if you simply want to let me know how much you enjoy dabbling around DutchDabbles, feel free to use the form below.