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🇬🇧 → 🇳🇱

How easy is Dutch for English speakers?

Going from English to Dutch (Nederlands) has a composite linguistic distance of 26% (curated lexical data). Below is the dimension-by-dimension breakdown.

26% distance FSI Cat I (Easiest) — 600–750 hours
Lexical similarity
63%

Shared vocabulary, cognates, and loanwords.

Grammatical distance
81%

Morphology, syntax, word order, cases.

Phonological similarity
14%

Shared sounds and phoneme inventory.

Writing-system match
100%

Latin → Latin

Genealogical kinship
100%

Indo-European ↔ Indo-European

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Sample sentences side-by-side

How everyday sentences look in both languages:

🇬🇧 English
The book is open on the table next to the lamp.
🇳🇱 Dutch
Het boek ligt open op de tafel naast de lamp.
🇬🇧 English
My father works in the city and comes home late in the winter.
🇳🇱 Dutch
Mijn vader werkt in de stad en komt laat thuis in de winter.

Curated cognates between English and Dutch

Word pairs that share a common etymological root — instantly recognisable across both languages:

Other easy languages for English speakers

The 5 languages with the lowest linguistic distance from English:

Think you can tell them apart?

A quick 3-question check between English and Dutch. No signup.