News — Dutch Grammar

Ten Steps To Understand Dutch Grammar And Learn To Read Dutch Here we'll list ten steps you can take to read Dutch and to understand what you're reading. It comes down to understanding the language and then consuming it. You don't have to rote learn all the grammar, but it is a good idea to get a comparative understanding of Dutch grammar before you start to read. Understand in general what grammar is and learn basic concepts - What are nouns, verbs, pronouns, articles? If you don't know, check out our Blog item on generic grammar concepts here! If you do know already,...

Dutch Nouns Dutch grammar is similar to German grammar and to a lesser extent English grammar. For Dutch nouns, like with German, there are different definite articles ("de" and "het" both meaning "the") for which the correct article has to be learned by experience (it is "het dorp (the village)" but "de stad (the city)"). For this, extensive reading is perfect. Words and their articles are assimilated naturally. When you read a lot of Dutch texts you will only encounter the correct combinations of nouns and their articles, and as such it will become part of your memory. For the...