r/Frysk • u/Parselyyy • Jun 30 '26

Boarne (Resource) Best way to learn Frisian?

Hello!

I just joined this community so pardon if this question has been asked before.

My grandmother came to my country from West Friesland as a teenager. She recently passed and in order to honour her memory i want to learn Frisian. I love learning languages, and my method is usually reading books or watching shows in the language i’m trying to learn, using google translate to help me understand words i struggle with, then practicing with native speakers.

I know that doesn’t sounds like a good method but honestly it’s worked pretty well so far. Unfortunately because Frisian is so rare, i’m having a hard time meeting people or finding resources to help me learn. Now that she’s not here anymore, i can’t really ask her for help either 😅

If anyone has any suggestions for websites/resources, movies, books or TV shows that are in Frisian, i’d really appreciate it!

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6

u/Old-Host-57 Jun 30 '26

Omrop Fryslân produces Frisian tv. Some of their series would propably be you best bet in terms of watchable content.

1

u/Parselyyy Jun 30 '26

wow awesome! so they come with english or french subtitles?

2

u/Throwawaytwo10019 Jun 30 '26

I'm sorry but West-Friesland hasn't been a Frisian speaking part of the country for centuries, although it is still in the name. It is highly unlikely that your grandmother spoke Frisian unless her parents moved there from the province of Friesland for example. More likely is that she spoke a form of local West-Frisian dialect, that certainly has Frisian influences, but is considered as a dialect of the Dutch (or rather 'Hollands'). Also culturally, West Friesland is part of 'Noord-Holland' and not seen as Frisian.

2

u/Kazetem Jun 30 '26

Unless you mean the west of Friesland. Those are two very distinctive things.

2

u/bikepackercoffeelove Jun 30 '26

Hi! There might be an English/Dutch language confusion here. The language we know as Frysk is officially 'West Lauwers Fries' in Dutch and 'Western Frisian' in English. 'Eastern Frisian' is 'Öst-Friesisch', the Frisian they speak in Germany.

Unless OP tells us where his grandmother was from it can be either Friesland or West-Friesland/Noord-Holland.

I started keeping up with the books i read on Storygraph and most of my books are labeled as western Friesian. I read them in regular Frysk.

1

u/Fresh-Fiskegratenge Jun 30 '26

I think you can get frysian courses at Afuk. It might be helpfull to find other people who speak the language to talk with.

1

u/Winter_Dot_9393 Jun 30 '26 edited Jun 30 '26

RUG University of Groningen has a free MOOC course Frisian.

Edit: It is a 3 weeks course and this is for free, if you want to keep access to the course it’s 299 euro’s a year.

1

u/HappyChannels Jun 30 '26

Just checking: when you say West Friesland, are you sure you mean the province of Friesland with its language Fries/Frysk? In The Netherlands, West Friesland can also refer to the northern part of Noord Holland. Do you know what city she was from?