Similarities between Dutch and German

[jcairns82]

I'm starting to learn some Dutch and keep reading that German speakers can easily make the transition. 

What are the similarities between the two? 

Are there any good sites? 

Would you suggest learning Dutch and German at the same time?

[Jellyfish]

I would not suggest to learn it at the same time. They are similar but not that similar. And learning German should be hard enough.

I guess Dutch has the same structure as German. Lots of words sound similar.

[Hedonologist]

As someone who's dutch is better than my German, I can often get confused, especially as I am learning German now. The verbs can get especially confusing as there are many similarities. If you use both often enough it shouldn't be a problem, but it can get confusing for beginners.

[DaBlink182]

There are a lot of similarities between the two, which is why I'd recommend you to not study them at the same time.

I suppose both languages have their difficulties and while I can't say for sure, I'm told a lot that Dutch grammar is quite difficult to learn, although it might look easier than German grammar.

To conclude, I guess it's best for you to study the language you'd like to learn the most, first. Then, once you can hold a decent conversation in one of them, move to the other so that you won't get too confused. Because trust me, they're pretty confusing if you mix them together.

[delusional]

As a Dutch speaker and knowing basic German, I can also say that there are a lot of similarities but it's mostly the structure of the sentences and vocabulary that is similar.

The grammar however is completely different and both languages have very difficult grammar.

If you are fluent in one language, you are probably able to understand the other when listening to conversations.

[Hedonologist]

There are a lot of similarities between the two, which is why I'd recommend you to not study them at the same time.

I studied Dutch first and now study German, and even now I occasionally slip in the odd German word when speaking Dutch, although for some reason I never use a dutch word when speaking German. I would say dutch grammar is harder, although German genders are certainly harder.

[qaximor]

I never studied or tried to learn Dutch but when I fly with KLM the host talks in Dutch which sounds different than German and more to English BUT I can pick out a lot of words from him when he is talking and know the context of what he is talking about.

[Hedonologist]

I never studied or tried to learn Dutch but when I fly with KLM the host talks in Dutch which sounds different than German and more to English BUT I can pick out a lot of words from him when he is talking and know the context of what he is talking about.

That's surprising as I find written dutch easy for an English speaker to sort of 'pick up' but spoken dutch is quite different I find. Having not studied a word of dutch I found that I could almost read entire signs in Belgium. Although even now after having studied dutch I find spoken dutch difficult to follow fluently.

[jubvman]

Yeah I agree they seem similar. But I wouldn't learn them both at the same time. Could easily get confused!

[Sandman]

I have been studying German for a little while now and I have noticed that there are some similarities in it to Afrikaans, which is a language I am fluent in, for example the number 4, 'vier' it has exactly the same spelling in both German and Afrikaans, another one is 'gesehen' which in Afrikaans is 'gesien', also the way in which context is used is quite similar. Afrikaans is almost like Dutch, some people say that if you can speak Afrikaans you could communicate with a Dutchman.