Germans often think Dutch people sound “cute” when speaking German because the sharp sounds get rounded out and the tight Teutonic vowels get flattened. The accents aren’t too bad, there’s few muddled sounds, for example, but you can immediately tell that the speaker is from the neighboring country. This difference of pronunciation shows when a member of either language learns the other. In all fairness, though, German is quite sharp, and Dutch is pretty broad, so there’s a fair bit of truth in each characterisation. In English we usually use the term “broad”). If you imitate the bad-guy German accent from the movies - “ve haff vays of making you talk” - you’ll notice that the sounds move forward a lot more than you’re used to if you’re an English speaker.ĭutch, on the other hand, is spoken a lot more in the middle and back of the mouth, with one sound even reaching halfway down the throat (the G).Īs a result, Dutch people will often call German scherp or hees (sharp or hoarse, respectively) while Germans will often dismiss Dutch as platt (flat, also the term for dialects. German is usually pronounced in the front of the mouth, giving it a very clipped, sharp feel. If you’re unfamiliar with them, they both may sound the same - “like gravel thrown into an empty rain barrel” is one description that stands out for me - but there are a lot of differences there. The most striking difference between Dutch and German for people who know either will probably be the sounds. To avoid confusion, linguists will use the term Netherlandic for the languages spoken in the Netherlands and Belgium, but since nobody besides them uses that word we’ll avoid it. It’s just the way English evolved over time and jumbled the two peoples together. However, since they sound very much the same, people will confuse the two. The word Dutch is what makes it all seem a little unclear: it’s the English word for the people and language of the Netherlands.Īt the same time, the word Deutsch is the word the Germans use for themselves and their language. Deutsch vs Dutchīefore we go on, though, let’s clear up one issue: many people seem to confuse the Dutch language with German because of some confusion surrounding nomenclature. Much like with German, any time I refer to “Dutch” in this article, I mean standard Dutch. Generally speaking, though, if you know standard Dutch, you should be able to make yourself understood across the Netherlands and Belgium.

Afrikaans is even weirder.ĭutch also has an official version, called Standaardnederlands (standard Dutch), but that’s not used in Belgium. Much like with German, though, if you learn Dutch in Amsterdam and then go on down to Antwerp or Bruges, don’t expect to always be understood. There are a large number of different dialects in Dutch (we go over some of them in our article on Dutch dialects), which is kind of surprising considering how small an area the language is spoken in. Dutchĭutch is also a West-Germanic language and is spoken in the Netherlands, northern Belgium (better known as Flanders) as well as South Africa, where a variant called Afrikaans is spoken by the descendants of Dutch settlers. In this article, when I say “German” I’ll mean Hochdeutsch unless otherwise stated. If you speak Hochdeutsch, then theoretically any German speaker should be able to understand you, even if you won’t understand what they’re saying back to you. There is, however, an official version of German, called Hochdeutsch (High German) that is the kind taught in schools and used by broadcasters in Germany - not in Austria or Switzerland, though. It has a lot of different dialects: if you learn German in say Berlin or Hamburg and then take your new-found knowledge to Vienna or Bern, you might find that you don’t understand a single word anybody is saying that goes double for country dialects. German is a West-Germanic language spoken in Germany, unsurprisingly, as well as Austria, Switzerland and a few patches of northern Italy and even a small sliver of Belgium. Dutch vs German: Where are they spoken?īefore we get into the nitty-gritty, though, let’s take a look at where these languages are spoken and which dialects we’ll compare. Let’s take a look at what sets German and Dutch apart, and also what brings them together. Dutch and German can sound very much alike to the untrained ear, yet there are many differences between the two languages.įrom the sounds they make, to the grammar and the vocabulary, it just goes to show that even in a single language group differences can be huge.Īt the same time, though, there are also a lot of similarities between the two, and speakers of one can very easily learn the other.

Easy german grammar prepositions