People love to say that Dutch is just German with a sore throat, or German is Dutch with extra rules. Neither is true, but the two are close relatives. Both grew out of the continental West Germanic dialects, and for centuries there was no hard line between them at all.
So how similar are they, and can a Dutch speaker really follow German?
Watch: One of Germany's Dialects Isn't German. Which One? · More videos
Where do Dutch and German split?
The biggest split is the High German consonant shift, a set of sound changes that hit the southern German dialects between roughly the 6th and 8th centuries. It turned p, t and k into new sounds. Dutch kept the old ones: appel vs Apfel, tien vs zehn, maken vs machen, dorp vs Dorf.
Once you know that pattern, you can guess a lot of German words from Dutch and the other way around.
Is German grammar harder than Dutch grammar?
Yes, for most learners. German keeps four cases, so articles and adjective endings change depending on a noun’s role in the sentence. Dutch dropped almost all case endings. German has three genders (der, die, das), while in Dutch masculine and feminine have mostly merged into one de, next to neuter het. Both languages put the verb at the end of subordinate clauses, so the word order feels familiar.
Book tip
The Awful German Language by Mark Twain
Twain’s famous short rant about learning German is still one of the funniest things written about grammar. A good read if you have ever fought with German articles.
Can Dutch speakers understand German?
Mostly, yes, and better than Germans understand Dutch. Research on mutual intelligibility, including work by the Groningen linguist Charlotte Gooskens, keeps finding this asymmetry. A big reason is exposure: Dutch pupils study German at school and grow up near German TV, while few Germans learn Dutch.
Is there a language in between?
Sort of. Along the border, Low Saxon (Low German) dialects are spoken on both sides, and for a long time they formed a smooth chain from Dutch to German. National borders and standard languages have cut that chain, but you can still hear it in the countryside of Groningen, Drenthe and Twente.
What does this have to do with Frisian?
There is a third player in this family story: Frisian. Like Dutch, it skipped the German consonant shift. Like Dutch, it has two articles, de and it (the Frisian version of het). But it is neither Dutch nor German, and in some ways it sits closer to English than either.
Read is West Frisian similar to Dutch? and the Frisian and German connection, then try a Frisian lesson and see how much you already recognise.
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