Dutch

Dutch is spoken by around twenty five million people across the Netherlands, Flanders in northern Belgium, Suriname and the Dutch Caribbean. It is the language of Amsterdam's canals and cycle lanes, of a famously direct way of talking, and of a culture where gezellig, that warm, cosy feeling of a good evening with friends, is close to a national value.

For English speakers it is one of the closest languages there is. Huge amounts of vocabulary are shared, from water and bed to appel and huis, and the grammar has none of the case endings German keeps. The challenges are the throaty g, the vowel pairs like ui and ij, and the habit of sending the verb to the end of a subordinate clause. The Dutch switch to English the moment you hesitate, so the real trick is asking them to stay in Dutch.