First of all the book "the Undutchables" by authors Boucke and White shows a clear picture of the strange peculiarities the Dutch have as a people.

"Dutch is impossible to learn, it's completely different from English, the grammar is very complicated, the Dutch sounds are impossible to pronounce and, after all, you don't really need Dutch of you're living in the Netherlands, because they all speak perfect English."

To the unaccustomed ear, Dutch appears to be constituted of grunts and growls, occasionally added snarls and k-sounds. That, however, is far from true. On this page I'll try to show the origin of our language as well as some of the ridiculous aspects.

From Dutch to English
Dutch word	sounds/looks like	but means
angel	angel	sting
as	ass	ashes, axle
bier	bier	beer
boon	bone	bean
boot	boot	boat
brief	brief	letter
broek	brook	trousers
die	die	demonstrative pronoun, e.g. that
dik	dick	fat, thick
doop	dope	baptize
dove	dove	deaf person
drop	drop	liquorice
fabriek	fabric	factory
fiets	feats	bicycle
fok	fuck	breed
heet	hate	to be named
hoor	whore	hear
ijdel	idle	vain
jurk	jerk	dress
kaak	cake	jaw
kok	cock	cook
kou	cow	cold
kip	kip	chicken
kont	cunt	buttocks
krap	crap	skint, penniless
kwik	quick	mercury
lijm	lime	glue
loof	loaf	folliage
mais	mice	corn
meet	mate	mark, measure
mes	mess	knife
modder	mother	mud
neem	name	take
neus	noise	nose
nevel	navel	mist, nebula
overal	overall	everywhere
paarden	pardon	horses
peen	pain	carrot
pieper	peeper	potato
prik	prick	soda
rare	rare	weird (person)
reep	rape	chocolate bar
rente	rent	account, interest
sectie	sexy	section
shag	shag	cigarette tobacco
smart	smart	grieve
snoep	snoop	sweets, candy
spiek	speak	to copy off
stuk	stuck	broken, bit, pretty one
teek	take	tick
tof	tough	great
toneel	toenail	theater, play
vaart	fart	sail, speed
vlaai	fly	fruit pie
warenhuis	warehouse	department store
wee	way	pain
wig	wig	wedge
wil	will	want
winkel	winkle	shop
wip	whip	quicky, seesaw
wissel	whistle	change
zeef	safe/save	sieve, strainer

From English to Dutch
English word	sounds like Dutch	which means
all	al	already
back	bek	mouth, snout
bill	bil	buttock
brick	brik	very old rickety car
Blue	Bleu	being shy
boar	boor	drill
coke	kook	cook
come	kam	comb
cut	kut	vagina
dear	dier	animal
dote	dood	dead
flicker	flikker	homosexual, gay
freight	vreet	to eat like an animal
fry	vrij	free, (I) make love
fryin'	vrijen	(to) make love
get far	getver	yuch
got far	godver	damn
lane	leen	borrow
leap	liep	walked
leg	leg	lay
life	lijf	body
like	lijk	corpse
love	laf	cowardly
lull	lul	penis
magazine	magazijn	warehouse
oar	oor	ear
of	of	or
offer	offer	sacrifice
oversight	overzicht	survey
paper	peper	pepper
peace, piece	pies	piss
pick	pik	penis
pimple	pimpel	boozing
play	plee	lavatory
proof	proef	test, experiment
prove	proeven	taste
pull	poel	pool, puddle
rate	reet	backside, arse
rest	rest	remain
ritz	rits	zipper
roam	room	cream
room	roem	fame
rove	roven	to rob
slate	sleet	wear and tear
slim	slim	clever
slip	slip	underpants
slope	sloop	wreck, pillowcase
spring	spring	jump
steak	steek	stab
stain	steen	brick
stride	strijden	to battle
tipple	tippel	streetwalk
wee	wee	very small

Many thanks to Marcel Heerink)

No one will deny that many Dutch master English to some reasonable degree. But how skilled are they really? What are the most common pitfalls to which the unsuspecting Dutch lingual wonders fall victim?

After the withdrawal from Britain of the Romans in the 5th century, the Celtic king, Vortigern entered into an agreement with a few Germanic mercenaries and asked them to help him drive out the Scots and the Picts. But after doing so the continental tribes decided to stay. From the 5th century onwards, English and Dutch were basically dialects of the same language, explaining why they share a basic Germanic vocabulary. Many dutch words will look familiar to an English speaker because they are similar (e.g. to sink=zinken; sun=zon; moon=maan; land=land; father=vader; mother=moeder; blind=blind; to shine=schijnen etc.)

If William the Conqueror would have stayed home in Normandy in 1066 nothing would have happened and we should still be speaking more or less the same language. But, he didn't and defeated the British at the Battle of Hastings.

From that day on, French was the official language among nobility, gentry and the upper classes for almost two hundred years. The commoners, however, continued to speak English.

But, when English was reinstated in the 14th century as the official language of Britain, it had by then changed too much to still resemble Dutch.

Major changes:
Grammatical gender, endings on adjectives and nouns (see shine and schijnen), and inflictions (cases) were dropped, and last but not least, an enormous amount of French words had become common usage and many native English words disappeared. Some English words that became extinct, but which still are present in Dutch are:
lichama=lichaam (body); gefaer=gevaar (danger); cnapa=knaap (boy); gesynt=gezond (healthy).

Noun shift in the 15th century:
A strange thing about English is that the letters that were used in the past to represent certain sounds haven't changed, but the sounds themselves have. This makes English difficult for foreigners to learn because they must memorize the different pronunciations, for example:
angel vs angle
apple vs apply
beat vs great
gather vs father
double vs noun
doing vs going
wound vs foundation
The very same difficulty happens to English people trying to pronounce Dutch words, not because they can't pronounce them, but simply for the same reasons I stated above. (hey:)

English speaking people encounter the very same difficulties when they try to pronounce Dutch words, because of the same reason, but in reverse. In future I will come back to this (in other words: under construction)

Next, the Dutch were occupied by the French as well (from 1795 to 1813) and during this period French became the official language, but apart from the fact that a lot of French words were 'imported' in Dutch language, nothing dramatic happened to the language itself. On the other hand, over the last couple of centuries many French, German and English words have been adopted into Dutch.

Best of all:
More than 2000 words in English are of Dutch origin. This happened during the time of the so-called 'Dutch Golden Age' when the Dutch sailed across the seven seas founding many colonies. As is Logical, many of these adopted words are of maritime origin:
(dok=dock; boei=buoy; wijting=whiting; jacht=yacht; kielhalen=keelhaul; schipper=skipper). During the American War of Independence they Americans were assisted by the Dutch: (koekje=cookie; koolsla=coleslaw; the names Jan and Kees made up the term Yankees; kispedoor=quspedor; baas=boss; and last but not least: daalder=dollar. In South Africa, a former Dutch colony, a whole new language was left behind: Afrikaner Dutch e.g.:
aardvarken=aardvarken
apartheid=apartheid
boer(farmer)=boer

Articles:
The case system used in many European languages has made them difficult to learn. For example, if you think German is difficult with its four cases, which results in six articles: der, des, dem, den, die das, whereas english has one(the) and Dutch three de, het, een, try Finnish which has more than ten cases. As mentioned above, the case system has been dropped almost entirely from English and Dutch. As a result English nouns and adjectives had dropped their endings and most Dutch adjectives only have an "e" ending. German adjectives can end in -e, -er, -es, and -en.

Verb tenses:
Like English, Dutch has four basic verb tenses:
I work = ik werk
I worked = ik werkte
I have worked = ik heb gewerkt
I had worked = ik had gewerkt

The verbs that are irregular English are irregular in Dutch as well (most of them anyway). The confusing part, causing nasty little tricks in both English and Dutch, is that Dutch lacks the rather complex system with auxiliary verbs that you find English:
can/be able to = kunnen
may/be allowed to = mogen

Asking questions:
Contrary to English, Dutch doesn't work with the verb to do in questions. Which can sometimes be the cause of confusion (even to the Dutch among one another). Take, for instance, a simple question:
1. Spreekt u Nederlands? means Do you speak Dutch?

The confusion arises when questions are asked in negative form:
2. Spreekt u geen Nederlands? would be literally translated as: Don't you speak Dutch? ,which could be interpreted by an Englishman as rather blunt.

3. U spreekt geen Nederlands? would literally be translated as: You don't speak Dutch?, and the same problem arises.
Let me say that it is difficult even for a Dutchman to answer these questions. Replying with a simple yes or no will leave the person asking the question unsure as to what the person replying really meant. Therefore most Dutch people will stick to the number one form of asking a question.

English solved that problem by adding the verb to do. The question is made clearer:
You do speak Dutch, don't you or You don't speak Dutch, do you?
Answering a such question and using the verb to do makes things absolutely clear to both persons:
No, I don't speak Dutch or Yes, I do speak Dutch
On top of that, the inability of the average Dutch speaker to adapt to the general British custom of raising the voice a pitch at the end of a sentence will only add to the impression that the Dutch are rude.

Word order:
Here is another point of confusion: Both English- and Dutch-speaking people find it difficult to put the words in the proper order in the other language, ending up with something that sounds comical to the native speaker.

Basic English sentence structure is:
Subject - Verb - Object (I am reading a book)
If you add something to the beginning of the sentence, the order doesn't change:
Modifier - Subject - Verb - Object (Tomorrow I will read a book).

Dutch sentence structure is:
Well, there is a slight difference. You won't notice it, though, in a simple sentence.
Subject - Verb - Object (Ik lees een boek = I am reading a book)
But when you add a modifier, (when a sentence doesn't begin with the Subject), the Verb always comes second. In other words, it changes places with the subject.
Modifier - Verb - Subject - Object ('s Avonds lees ik een boek = In the evening I read a book).

Another thing, a relic from Germanic, is that the Dutch like to put the verb at the end of a sentence. All Infinitives and past participles, for example, are always found at the end of a clause, all verbs are found at the end of a sub-clause.
. In Shakespearean times this kind of sentence structure still existed in English:
"Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended." (Past participle at the end)

Is learning Dutch really necessary?
Everybody in the Netherlands seems to speak English perfectly so why bother?.

(Personally it's my opinion that in "When in Turkey do as the turkeys do"- fashion if people start living in this country they should learn the language.)

The famed Dutch ability to master any language they come across is a gross exaggeration. Sure, during the first years of high school every Dutch student has take Dutch, French, German and English. If students attend a Gymnasium (what the Dutch call school of the "classics") they're likely to take Latin and ancient Greek as well. But this doesn't mean that, in the end, the Dutch master all these languages, as I well know. The obvious reasons for fading away of the acquired lingual skills are obvious: lack of practice, lack of interest... Sure, in daily life, it superficially appears this way. And the Dutch are the first to address you in what they assume is your native tongue, but this is no more than Dutch politeness.

Shopping
A little familiarity with Dutch might help you get around, but even though you may think you can manage perfectly well, the following should stun you a little bit. Be warned: I am not going to explain all the differences between all the Dutch cheeses. (O.K., I will ;)
"I would like to have some Dutch cheese."
"Sure, what kind do you want? Edammer cheese, Leidse-, Goudse-, Komijne (cumin) cheese , Graskaas (very young cheese), Rookkaas (smoked cheese, if this is the proper term, rv), belegen kaas (matured cheese), jong belegen kaas (less matured cheese), oude kaas (very matured cheese), jonge kaas ('young' cheese), smeerkaas (cream cheese)? "

"I would like to have a loaf of bread."
"Sure, what do you want? Witbrood (white b.), bruinbrood (cornish b.), volkoren brood (full grain b.), grof volkoren brood (very full grain b.), pandabrood, tijgerbrood, melk wit, vloermik , bolletjes (buns), viergranenbrood (4-grain), meusslibrood. Some of them cannot be translated, but I can recommend most types of Dutch bread, it's very taste and when you go to a bakery it is always fresh.

Television and the media
Witch the exception of the news, the weather and the like, Dutch networks prefer to add Dutch subtitles instead of having actors lip sync the shows. Since most television series are from either the States or the UK (not to forget Australia), there will be no problem for an English speaker. But if you do happen to know some Dutch, you may have questions about the quality of the subtitling! ;)
As for newspapers and magazines, of course, they aren't worth bothering unless for serious practicing.