I’m trying to learn dutch on Lingq right now. I am wondering if anyone has had success with this language on this platform, how long it took them, and if they have any general advice?
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Not to be confused with the forums profile, but @PeterBormann documented a lot of the Dutch resources he used to learn Dutch on LingQ. You need to scroll past a few posts. I almost linked to specific ones, but noticed several would probably be relevant to what you’re after!
I learned to speak and read Flemish/Dutch using LingQ, italki and Memrise/Anki.
On Memrise I did the basic decks produced by Memrise, and then made my own decks in Anki focused mainly on translating sentences I had read into Dutch.
In LingQ, I started with … Harry Potter, and then moved onto other fiction novels I wanted to read. Recently I have not been reading much on LingQ, but instead just use my boox tablet (without LingQ) or physical books (Amazon.de has a huge selection that ships to me). I have started to enjoy reading more non-fiction and history and articles about Belgium and the Netherlands.
For listening, beyond audiobooks, I listened to lots of podcasts and YouTube channels with content in Dutch. My favorite is the Nerdland podcast. A monthly technology focused podcast that features a lot of cross talk and discussion.
After a year of reading + listening, I started my first lesson on italki with arguably the best tutor I have had on italki. We met* weekly for about a year and then things have slowed down recently, but I made some Dutch speaking friends and we meet up about once a month to chat.
As far as general advice… you can find more of it than you ever asked for on the LingQ forums. Read a lot, listen a lot, read and listen a lot. Get lots of repetition on the same content over time. Get lots of novelty. It all helps.
Now Dutch specific general advice, pay attention to the modal particles - e.g. wel, even, soms, etc. Don’t expect to “master” them anytime soon, but start noticing them from day 1 and think about how people are using them.
I would also point out how you say “there is”. A lot of times in Dutch people might use what my English native mind would think of as an intransitive or “motion” verb to say “there is” something. “Er zit een eekhoorn in de boom.” is the example that is permanently burned into my head.
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Thank you so much for the detailed reply, super helpful! Will dig into the stuff you suggest
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I learned it here and I now speak it semi-fluently. I was already fluent in German, which made it a lot easier and being fluent in English and Norse languages also helped, as well as already being a polyglot. This meant it took me a lot less time than it would take most people. I did about 1000 known words for 21 days straight when I started for example. Then there was quite a bit of work in just going up to whoever I would hear speaking Dutch in my own country or abroad and striking up conversations. Now I have a language exchange partner who I meet up with occasionally, where we take turns conversing in Icelandic and Dutch.
As with any language, you want to start with whatever material isn’t too hard for you and keep moving up and challenging yourself, but also sometimes coming back to easier material. You also need to listen a lot and not just get lost in the sport of getting a high known words count.
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Did you ever get confused with its similarity to German? I took German in high school, and have found myself mixing it into my Dutch haha
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Yes that was pretty much the hardest part, especially in the beginning, when I started to speak. I would use a lot of German terms where there is another, appropriate one in Dutch, for example: “man”->“je”, “immer”->“altijd”, “schon”->“al/avast”, “als”->“toen”, “als”->“dan”, “brauche(brauke/gebrauke)”->“heb het nodig”, “korrekt”->“juist”, “fast/alvast”->“bjina”. I also sometimes use German word structures too much in Dutch.
Another thing that took a while to learn was not to use the verb reversal that always happens in subordinate clauses in German, when it’s not zijn or hebben in Dutch.
Here is an example of where it has to happen in DE but is optional in NL: Ich bin frölich, weil ich frölich bin → Ik ben blij, want ik blij ben (or) Ik ben blij, want ik ben blij. Ich habe das gemacht, weil ich das gemacht habe → Ik heb het gedaan, want ik dat gedaan heb (or) Ik be het gedaan, want ik heb het gedaan.
Here is an example where it has to happen in DE (as always) but is does not, and is not allowed to happen in NL: Ich wollte gehen, weil ich gehen wollte → Ik wilde gaan, want ik wilde gaan. Ich soll das machen, weil ich das machen soll → Ik zaal het moete doen, want ik zaal het moete doen.
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“Did you ever get confused with its similarity to German?”
Yes, as a native speaker of German, this happens to me all the time.
Dutch feels like a “dialect of German”, but only when it comes to reading /
listening comprehension.
Speaking and writing are still a challenge because of the many interferences. It’s the same with other closely related languages such as Spanish, Gallego and (European or Brazilian) Portuguese.
At the beginning of my Dutch acquisition journey, I thought it was “easy” to acquire this language. However, it’s still necessary to put in a lot of hours to reach an advanced level, esp. in speaking / writing.
Nevertheless, the mental burden in learning Dutch is reduced if one already knows another Germanic language.
I’ve been learning Japanese, for example, for more than 3 years now - and that’s a “completely” different SLA beast. I’d call it an exciting, but also “humbling” experience - and that’s not the case with Dutch 
Good luck & success,
Peter
PS -
You will find many Dutch resources on my LingQ homepage, as Toby {@noxialisrex ) mentioned. Simply use the URL of your LingQ profile + @ + my username (without the plus signs and blanks).
Unfortunately, this page has become a “mess” where I myself occasionally have trouble finding my own previous posts
Anyway, I wanted to put this stuff - in a more organized way - on Medium / a Wordpress blog. But that’s for later, because, at the moment, I’m drowning in work and have to work a lot of overtime.
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Thanks Peter! If you ever make that medium post, please let me know as I’d definitely read it
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Also with mentioning it is Koningsdag today. A good day to get out your orange and have a beer (and maybe read about Koningsdag in het Nederlands).
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Ha, thanks for the reminder! Just sent my dutch relatives my congratulations
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With a 130 day streak, I read Dutch every day and accumulated about 5000+ words, soon to reach Intermediate. I didn’t spend too much time, but a little bit every day. I only used LingQ and no other resources, didn’t read any grammar books, etc. - knowing German is a big advantage for me in acquiring words quickly. I started from ground-up, so didn’t know any Dutch before.
Before I started, I could listen to Dutch and almost make out something. However, when I read the sentence, I didn’t understand anything, because I didn’t know the right pronunciation of the words. Over the course of 4 months, I can read now well enough that I can understand the text and acquired kind of the common conversion rules for Dutch-German.
At this point, I can read newspapers fairly well; listening to everyday conversations works pretty well too, I can best understand Dutch from second language speakers (not Dutch natives); I haven’t practiced speaking as much.
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