Introduction

So, you want to learn Dutch, beloved reader? Excellent — if you’ve purchased this book then you’re already well on your way to doing so. Dutch is the official language in The Netherlands, Belgium and Surinam. About 24 million people consider it to be their mother tongue, while another 5 million people do speak it as a second language. With this book you can make this number bigger by at least one point!

And most importantly, you can do it in a fun and really efficient way. If there’s something we know for sure after years in the language learning world, it is that many students choose — or are provided with — the wrong means of study, with professors giving them boring textbooks full of rules they’ll never learn or need in a real world situation; while others may overwhelm them with reading material that only serves to make them feel uncomfortable and doubtful of their own skills and level as a Dutch learner.

Our goal with this book is to allow you, the reader, to encounter useful, entertaining conversations that adapt very well into dozens of real life situations that you can and certainly will encounter in the Dutch-speaking world, giving you a chance to fend for yourself when you come across them!

Vocabulary is crucial to learning any new language, and the conversations in this book will guarantee you pick up plenty of it and watch how it is applied to real life.

What this book is about and how it works:

This book will ensure you practice your conversational skills in Dutch through the use of one hundred and five examples of conversations, written in both Dutch and English to allow you to fully understand what’s going on in each and every one of them.

Each new chapter is an entirely new, fresh conversation between two people of an everyday situation you may tackle sooner or later. You’ll be able to observe how to handle yourself when it comes to checking in at a hotel, asking for directions, meeting an old friend or ordering food at a restaurant, among many others.

If you want to ensure proper understanding of the story, we recommend you read the story in both languages and follow the narrative in a way that gives you the chance to cross-reference what’s going on in Dutch by checking out the story in clear, concise English.

How was this book created ?

The dialogues you’ll find inside is the result of collaboration between both English and Dutch native speakers. Once written in natural English the stories were translated into Dutch and we feel it crucial to give a brief explanation of how it was done.

Since we want you to sound natural, we avoided a word for word translation, so you may come across situations when

- Translations are shorter or longer than the original;

- Some translations are descriptive. For example, there’s no way in Dutch to say “a red-eye flight” in two words;

- One and the same word is translated differently in different sentences.

For this reason, it might be a good idea to learn whole phrases sometimes, rather than separate words.

So, wake up your inner linguist, analyze, make your own discoveries and get amazed at how different languages work!

Now you know what it is the book will provide you… what are the best ways to use it?

Tips and recommendations for readers of Conversational Dutch Dialogues :

This book is certainly easy to pick up and use as many times as you need to, but there are effective ways of applying it to your learning that will get the most out of it. Remember, being effective will not only increase the amount you learn, but also decrease the time you need to spend on doing so!

So, what should you do to improve your learning with Conversational Dutch Dialogues ?

Well, you can always:

1-      Roleplay these conversations, whether it’s alone or with a friend — Pretending to actually setting up a bank account with a friend may actually do much more for your knowledge of Dutch than any lesson will. This book provides you with plenty of material so go ahead and act! Your pronunciation, fluency and confidence will all benefit from it!

2-      Look up the words you don’t understand — there will always be vocabulary and specific terms you may not get and which aren’t translated exactly word-for-word (for our purposes of making the conversation realistic in both languages), so you may need a dictionary. Don’t feel upset or ashamed of jotting down those words you don’t understand for a quick search on the internet later on!

3-      Make your own conversations! — Once you’re done with this book, pick any conversation from the hundred and five examples you have and adapt it to your own version. Why not make it so that the receptionist of the hotel didn’t have rooms? Or maybe the friends meeting each other weren’t so friendly, eh? Find something you like and create something new!

4-      Don’t be afraid to look for more conversations once you’ve finished reading and practicing with this book — Only through practice can you reach perfection, or at least as closest as you can get to it!

Well that’s all we had to tell you, reader. Now go ahead and show the world you can handle anything! Work hard and keep it up, and before long you’ll breeze past any Dutch lesson.

Believe in yourself, it’s all you need to achieve even the impossible!

Good luck!