It's not the only thing I'm using, but it is one of them. It's very versatile, I get to print exams and fill them in by hand and then uploading the images so I don't do everything in the computer. Another thing that I find helpful are the artifacts. For example, I created this one to do drills of conjugations:
https://claude.ai/artifact/KioUuPSRh54zVAejxeXhQT

What do you think I could improve in it?

I am on the partner visa, I have 3 years to be B1 dutch. The inburgering advisors always suggest to take the lessons with the BlikOpWerk quality mark.

Of course, those are more expensive.

I was thinking on saving a couple thousand euros by joining other “non official” language school.

Even though I qualify for the DUO Loan I would like to know your advice on other schools.

I am employed and I need the lessons so be in person. I have tried self paced and couldn’t see much progress on my own.

Thank you!

Been here a bit, and there's one grammar thing that keeps biting me.

Textbooks say both of these are fine in a bijzin:

omdat ik dat gedaan heb

omdat ik dat heb gedaan

My teacher called it a free choice. Once I actually started listening it's clearly not 50/50. Colleagues in Utrecht (mostly 20s and 30s) default to aux-first in speech (heb gedaan), which doesn't match the "spoken = participle-first" line I was taught.

Sent both sentences to a tandem partner on HelloTalk and asked her to read them out loud. She picked one without thinking, then stopped to work out why the other sounded "stiff". Her words were basically "yeah you'd write that but you wouldn't say it."

Older people I've chatted with lean more toward participle-first in speech. Same with a Belgian friend I run into at a café, basically every time she goes gedaan heb. So the textbook pattern isn't wrong exactly, it just seems to be shifting in Randstad spoken Dutch toward aux-first.

What I keep getting stuck on is whether the choice actually feels different to native speakers. Does gedaan heb come across as slightly more final than heb gedaan? Or is it just reflex, no semantic weight behind it. A few people I asked had never thought about it until I made them try both out loud.

Still mulling it over.

Hello all,

I was wondering if the speaking tests are always in the afternoon/evening slot? I was trying to get a slot for morning to reduce the stress for whole day but unfortunately either I cannot see any slot or only around 4pm slots.

At what time was your exam for speaking A2?

Hoi, ik ben heel hard op zoek naar deze documentaireseries met de stem van Vic De Wachter (niet van David Attenbrough). Kan iemand me hiermee helpen? Veel dank alvast! Vriendelijke groeten.

If you are looking for resources to learn and, more importantly, practice Dutch grammar, the options are somewhat limited. Although there are books from publishers like NT2 or Coutinho, they are mainly focused on people taking courses, and I am not sure if they are good enough for self-study.

The Grammatica book published by Van Dale comes with a practice book, Oefenboek Grammatica, which I would like to share my opinion on.

The book covers a lot of important grammar from levels A1 to B2. Almost half of the book focuses on topics ranging from the definite article to possessive pronouns/determiners. This was my favorite chapter, because I still struggle with het/de (who does not?)

The second part focuses on verbs and their formation in different tenses. However, this part lacks enough exercises on separable verbs. "Scheidbare werkwoorden" is one of the most difficult topics for learners, so I wonder why the author did not pay more attention to it. I am a bit disappointed, to be honest.

However, the last part, which I really also liked, is about Dutch sentence structure. There is enough exercises to help you understand it.

Ik gebruik geen vertalen dus sorry voor enige fouten dat ik maak. Ik zit tussen A2 en B1 niveau in het Nederlands. Ik vind die taal leuk en ik hou van de cultuur. Als je Nederlands aan het leren bent of een moedertaalspreeker is, laten me weten. Ik gebruik hellotalk maar ik kan discord of whatsapp ook.

Ik zoek een gezellig praatje in plaats van een leraar. Ik wil meer van de cultuur weten. Tot nu toe week ik om verschillende maaltijden een andere dingen.

Dankjewel voor lezen! 😄

Quick question about writing dates in Dutch.

If you had a small label showing a period, like from 25 October to 24 November, which one would you write?

• 25-10-2026 t/m 24-11-2026
• 25-10-2026 - 24-11-2026
• 25 okt - 24 nov
• something else?

The hyphens inside the dates plus a hyphen between them looks a bit messy to me, so I'm not sure what's normal. Would a "~" between the two dates look strange?

Bedankt!

Non-native here. I'm trying to find the natural word for the money that leaves every month no matter what: rent or mortgage, energy, internet, phone, insurance, subscriptions.

When you talk about this with friends or family, which one would you say?

• vaste lasten
• vaste kosten
• maandlasten
• just "rekeningen"
• something else?

Is "vaste kosten" more of a business word? And if you kept a list of these in a notebook or spreadsheet, what would you write at the top?

Bedankt!

Ik ben student bij een hogeschool en voor een bepaald vak moet ik een enquête aan anderen te laten antwoorden. Beide ENGELS + NEDERLANDS. / I am a student at college and for a subject I have to do an enquête for others to answer. Both ENGLISH + DUTCH.
Alvast bedankt. / Thank you in advance.

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdFVRhmE20cLridb5UwsjmeEHhJsra-9phccsCwlMPELPKgGg/viewform?usp=dialog

Started learning Dutch 4 months ago and somehow got distracted by numbers. For now, I can read and write them, but for a real conversation I’m out.

I have moved on to everyday phrases, but Dutch keeps throwing me things like Doe maar normaal and Gezellig, hè?.

Understanding the individual words is not a problem, but knowing when to say them naturally gives me a headache. And do not get me started on trying to pronounce Scheveningen.

For now, I want to practice the phrases I know in actual conversations. ChatGPT helps with explanations, and YouTube lets me hear how Dutch sounds.

Am I making a mess of the learning process, or can I build up through everyday phrases and learn the grammar as I go?

ik maak nu opdrachten met lastig woordje ER en ik snap de volgorde in zinnen niet helemaal. hier zijn de antwoorden uit het boek:

Ja, zij zijn zich ervan bewust.

Ja, hij maakt zich er nog steeds druk om.

mijn vraag is waarom staat het woord BEWUST aan het einde van de eerste zijn, en het woord DRUK niet in de tweede zin? allebei zijn bijvoeglijke naamwoorden. wat is het verschil en waarom is het niet ZIJ ZIJN ZICH ER BEWUST VAN zoals in de tweede zin?

Hello,
Would anybody like to share their thoughts on the A2 writing exam?
My exam is in a week, and I have to complete my integration before April of next year. Since the results are taking so long these days, I have no choice but to pass on my first try.
My weakest area is grammar. Has anyone recently passed their exam, and if so, could you share some tips? I am using inburgering.org and inburgering.nl for my studies. Are the exercises on these sites actually close to the real exam in terms of vocabulary and grammar?
Please help me. I don’t have much of a choice, as I can't afford to wait an eternity for results only to have to take the exam again.

I've been living in the Netherlands for 5 years and never took my Dutch learning seriously, apart from some Duolingo lessons here and there. I would say that over the years my understanding of Dutch (listening and reading) has improved significantly, confidently placing it at B1-B2. And I know it might seem like an exageration, but it isn't, I even did mock tests. However, my active skills (writing and particularly speaking) were basically nonexistent until recently. I am great at recognizing words and they all have a meaning in my head, but when it comes to producing, my brain couldn't recall anything (even something as ordinary as "ik moet boodschappen doen") placing my active skills at A1.

Last month I lost my job due to a big fire, and I since started learning Dutch intensively to finally leave horeca (I live in Friesland, so not a lot of opportunities for internationals). I have been practicing almost everyday, around 3-4 hours a day, almost exclusively with De Opmaat. I have now finished it, and I feel like I actually improved my skills. I have also started using Dutch in my daily life, which I never did before. The next step is De Sprong, which would supposedly guide me from A2 to B1, but I am skeptical and am wondering if I should consider other options before investing the next couple of months into it. Until now, I have submitted all my writing assignments to ChatGPT for corrections, and didn't really do the speaking assignments since I am learning by myself, but as I said I started speaking Dutch here and there.

I am looking for people with similar experiences to mine (very high understanding, very low active skills) and am curious to hear what you've done, and how long it took you to become fluent and land a Dutch speaking job. If possible I would like to avoid paying for courses, as I would like to work faster than once a week, and private lessons are too expensive for me at the moment. I am mostly interested in self-study options, and want to hear if someone has done it with de Opmaat, Sprong, Finale trio.

So, I speak English natively, German pretty fluently (I'm a bit rusty now but majored in it at university). I want to learn Dutch because I'd eventually like to move to NL, marry my girlfriend, and become a Dutch citizen. But trying to use beginner-oriented Dutch learning materials makes me want to bash my head into a wall, because I know just enough from my other two languages that it feels way too slow.

When I was studying German, I liked playing video games in German for immersion, like Animal Crossing and Pokemon. Obviously, Pokemon isn't available in Dutch, and Animal Crossing's RTC system kind of...conflicts...with my circadian rhythm issues nowadays. I figured, when I do read stuff in Dutch, I already can pick out enough words I do know that I could play something in Dutch with a dictionary handy and sort of pick up the grammar naturally and ask my girlfriend for help with confusing parts. That's why I wanted to ask what games out there have good Dutch translations for the sake of immersion.

Also, please do not recommend AI-generated fan translations. Beyond the moral objections I have to them, LLMs don't so much translate text as they do rewrite it in their shitty, smug little clanker tone, so it's not actually good practice for applicable, real-life Dutch.

Hey guys, beginner Dutch learner here. Just wanted to share a quick breakthrough I had with subclauses (word order) that might help anyone else coming from an SOV language background.
I spent the last 10 years speaking advanced Korean, and when I first started Dutch, things like 'omdat' or 'als' were completely breaking my brain. I was stuck in this annoying double-translation loop: I'd make a standard sentence in my head, and then manually drag the verb to the end because of the conjunction. It completely killed my speaking speed.
Then it clicked—why am I overcomplicating this? My brain is already wired for Korean, which is a natural Subject-Object-Verb (SOV) language where the verb is always at the end anyway.
So instead of shifting verbs around twice, I just flip into my "Korean brain" the second a Dutch conjunction drops.
Instead of thinking: "I'm tired because I [worked] all day -> wait, move it -> because I all day [worked]."
I just jump straight to the SOV structure like in Korean (내가 하루 종일 [일했기] 때문에).
It seriously skyrocketed my processing speed. Has anyone else used this kind of shortcut to conquer Dutch grammar, or are there hidden traps with this mindset later

Hi!

I have recently started learning Dutch and I am currently trying to learn telling time in Dutch, which is kind of confusing 😄

I was wondering if native speakers drop “uur” in spoken language like dropping o’clock in English.

“Ik moet van 09.00 tot 17.00 uur werken”

Would you drop uur here in spoken language?

Van negen tot vijf werken
Van negen tot vifj uur werken
Van negen uur tot vifj uur werken

I recently completed all my A2 exams and now I want to get better with my conversional skills since I’ll be applying for my citizenship soon here, so I want to immerse myself more and pay respect to the country, culture by being able to talk fluently in this language. I know it takes time but I’m ready to work hard

Some points-
- every time I speak in my broken dutch, people often switch to English:(
- none of the children’s show works for me, so I need recommendations on something that’s mature yet understandable with my A2
- i like to read so I tried children’s book but again I got bored 🥱

Absolutely overwhelm me with your netflix recommendations, i have also prime and books please

And i will be forever grateful 🙏🏼