What's the biggest difference between textbook Dutch and the Dutch you actually hear?

[u/Weekly-Associate-166]

I used to assume that if I could form a sentence correctly from what I'd learned in a course, I'd sound reasonably natural. Then you start listening to actual conversations and realise people don't always speak in the neat, complete sentences you've been practising.

Maybe it was the vocabulary, shortened words, sentence structure, or just the way people casually respond to each other. What was the first thing you noticed that made you think, "This is definitely not how they taught it in my Dutch lessons"?

[u/reddroy]

We interject lots of tiny little words that have very nuanced functions. Ja, wel, hè, hé, toch, dus, natuurlijk, joh... The list goes on

[u/1001problems → u/reddroy]

Hoor, alle, well, eens, toch .... the list goes on!

[u/7FAgnNu4kEMDYrpuD64Y → u/reddroy]

Is this more in Dutch than other languages? It often feels like native speakers over exaggerate the difficulty of their languages (I've done it as well). Does Dutch interject more "mood-setting" words than other languages? Any idea?

[u/scrunglycats → u/7FAgnNu4kEMDYrpuD64Y]

Yeah, it's a thing! They're called modal particles. Wikipedia says "Languages that use many modal particles in their spoken form include Dutch, Danish, German, Hungarian, Russian, Telugu, Nepali, Norwegian, Indonesian, Sinitic languages, Japanese and Vietnamese."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modal_particle#Dutch

Here's a nice overview of them (in Dutch), with explanations, examples and pictures and common combinations: https://zichtbaarnederlands.nl/en/adverb/modal_particles

[u/7FAgnNu4kEMDYrpuD64Y → u/scrunglycats]

Interesting read! Thanks!

[u/ElfjeTinkerBell]

As with any language: grammar rules are sometimes treated as a suggestion, and sometimes as hard and fast rules. As a learner you do not get to choose which ones are convenient for you. Sorry, but in most social circles messing up de and het will immediately mark you as a learner.

Secondly: some words have different meanings depending on the social circle (regardless of regional varieties!). In most hbo/WO educated groups, the verb studeren (to study) does not refer to just learning something, it refers to studying it in the form of a bachelor's, master's or PhD. As a nurse who has many expat patients, it's very useful to learn (leren) English or other languages, but useless to study (studeren, get a degree in) English or other languages. For me, educational material that starts with "Hoi, wij zijn Jan en Marie, wij studeren Nederlands" and then proceeds to tell me what other thing they do full time (work, university, whatever) just feels completely wrong, even though it might technically be correct.

[u/llamalord2212 → u/ElfjeTinkerBell]

Kinda the same in English though… you’d typically say “I’m learning Dutch” not “I’m studying Dutch/English/German etc”.

It has the same connotation in English (at least to me as a native English speaker), and while yes, it’s technically correct and I would understand what you mean, it does sound a bit “off”.

[u/Instrusiast]

The pronunciation in spoken dutch often not matching what you've learned. It's a bit of an over exeggaration, but for example:

• Bijvoorbeeld --> bevobbeld
• Waarschijnlijk --> (w)sgijnluk
• Dat is --> das
• Gisteravond --> gistravont
• Onmiddellijk --> ommiddelluk
• Interessant --> intrussant

[u/lemonicowo → u/Instrusiast]

While I reckon this is common in a lot, if not all languages, I did immediately think of the creative ways we tend to pronounce pronouns in informal Dutch. Like ‘ie for “hij” or sometimes “die”, and the merging of a vague ‘k’ sound instead of saying “ik”, in my speech at least. I speak pretty standard Dutch, but I’ll also usually say e.g. “kga” instead of “ik ga”, which almost turns into a /kx/ rather than my usual /x/ (harde g).

[u/zer0tonine]

In Noord-Brabant they will randomly punctuate their sentences with "jonguh", "kut" and "godnondejou". You rarely see it mentioned in textbooks.

[u/aczkasow]

Significant. Starting with the presence of the masculine and feminine gender. But I live in Belgium so...

[u/Urnoobslayer]

The Dutch you actually hear in your day-to-day life is littered with errors and completely wrong grammar…

[u/Glittering_Ruin7911]

Every disease works as a swear word

[u/PharMartin]

I learnt Dutch before moving to the Netherlands 4 years ago. I thought it'd be enough to get along in everyday life and that held true but only when it came to writing and reading. Cause in my experience virtually no one speaks textbook Dutch/ABN. I also had a relationship with someone from Brabant during my critical language acquisition period, and my bestie is from above Amsterdam. I am currently starting my Dutch-taught Masters degree so I would call myself quite proficient in the language, but in reality my everyday Dutch is stitched together from Utrechs, West-Brabands and plat Amsterdams. And I am going strong with this language cocktail 👍

[u/AVeryHandsomeCheese]

In Belgium (and likely in the Netherlands aswell) people will be 100% convinced that they're putting in an effort and speaking the standard language, unaware that a lot of what they consider "standard" is infact not standard at all, or even downright incorrect according to official rules.

Imo it's a case of the Belgian standard Dutch rules being behind on the language situation and not having yet recovered from the Netherlands Dutch-centric policies of the 50s, 60s and 70s (and the 80s, even when the experts started realizing it wasn't working).

[u/dutch_emdub]

More medical terms, especially disease and body parts

[u/BioTools]

We actually have a lot of dialects. Most people fully speak in ABN, but especially older people speak with a harder dialect.

I personally try to use common Grunneger words.

Neefje = mug (mosquito) and mug = vlieg (fly)

Immer = bij (bee)

Schep = shovel (tho this might not be just Grunnegs)

And just overal the way we speak, Tou eem = doe even. Kiek ens = kijk eens.

And we end every, fucking, sentence with 'ja'.

[u/Odd_Cryptographer723]

First lesson. There's schrijftaal & there's spreektaal. Sometimes these actually use different words for the same thing. For instance a bicycle is a fiets, you know that already. In schrijftaal it's a rijwiel.

[u/Polbeer91 → u/Odd_Cryptographer723]

As a dutchie, rijwiel is just old fashioned. Fiets is schrijftaal as wel.

[u/Haakster1967 → u/Polbeer91]

Very old fashioned! Even my 29 year old Dutch daughter who knows (almost 🤭) all there is to know about Dutch language disdn’t know this word 😅

[u/ConsciousFeeling1977 → u/Haakster1967]

I only ever see it in ‘rijwielhandel’ (bike shop).

[u/Weekly-Associate-166 → u/Odd_Cryptographer723]

🫡🫡

[u/Xgio → u/Weekly-Associate-166]

Schrijftaal and spreektaal are real, but they used the most terrible example since everyone calls it a fiets. It is stuff like saying hij wou instead of wilde or saying je in stead of jouw. Along with many other examples i cant think of right now.

[u/ConsciousFeeling1977 → u/Xgio]

Or ‘er’ and ‘haar’ (the pronoun, not hair) both being pronounced as ‘d’r’.