Why does Dutch have a reputation of being difficult?

As a native English speaker Dutch seems pretty easy to me, it's verb conjugations are similar to English, prehaps only slightly more difficult in some cases, it's word order is prehaps slightly freer, but not drastically so and I wouldn't say it's gramatically any more complex than English on the whole.

Yet people seem to have this perception that Dutch is an extremely difficult language that takes years to learn. Prehaps this perception comes from the sometimes weird pronounciation of Dutch which creates a more alien perception, but structurally it seems pretty easy for an English speaker.

On the other hand, Spanish is considered piss-easy for English speakers, yet I'd say Spanish verb conjugations and grammar is significantly more complex than Dutch. Spanish pronounciation is however significantly easier and less intimidating for a learner than Dutch.

Does Dutch deserve its reputation of being difficult, or is it just one of these stereotypes that has arisen?

Because those Dutch hate themselves so much it's impossible to deal with them. They literally cringe at the sound of their own tongue, and in trembling fear and red-faced embarrassment they immediately shift to English. They lament their whole lives with great regret and bitterness that English wasn't their native language, and they do everything possible to cover up their "shameful" origins with the same zeal and repressed guilt as a reformed criminal tries to conceal the prison sentences of his shady past.

<< They lament their whole lives with great regret and bitterness that English wasn't their native language >>

-- Exactly. Especially in the Netherlands.

The Flemish have less self-hate. And they speak their language with a softer and lovelier accent.

I suppose the Dutch tend to exagerate the rawness of their pronunciation just to persuade foreigners not to learn their language.

Besides, Dutch is easy. If you already have some notions of German it's a piece of cake.

TR and Parisien, why don't you just leave Germanic people and languages alone. You greasy little Romance speaking whiney French poofters.

It just isn't difficult. The only difficulties come with word order (believed to be quite capricious), some words like 'er', 'nog'/'nog steeds' en some more. Now, all languages have such traps, and you'll learn them fast enough.
Dutch-speaking people (Flemish more than Dutch) indeed are convinced they speak a difficult language, having created a myth along with it abroad. Dutch-speaking people have a tradition of keeping alive self-harming myths and even take pride in this. Linguistically our culture is anti-imperialist and stoic. We're only economically imperialistic.
Certainly for Germanic-speaking people an easy language to learn, but it's just not that important as English is and didn't create a lot of refined culture which is language-based without having to copy from neighbours (Anglo-Saxons and Germanophones even have operas, we don't; we're traders like Scandinavians).

I'd like to see ourselves as the bridge between the Anglophone, Germanophone and Francophone worlds. Nowadays we're very aimed toward the Anglo-Saxon culture. Some Dutch and Flemish even claim they have a Lowlandic/Anglo-Saxon culture, which is true for a huge part. There is a sentiment growing however, which sees imperialism in this and efforts are being made to distance ourselves from the Anglo-Saxons, like the Dutch did before with the Germans. This movement is currently starting in the Netherlands slowly leaving us Flemings the more Anglophile ones.
But we're not Anglophobe, I don't think we'll ever become it (Dutch used to be periodically during and after the Anglo-Boer war, which was a Germanophile period). Germanophobia never really existed in Flanders, and is luckily also fading in the Netherlands (some extreme hardcore Belgian-nationalists associate us with Germans to 'insult' us, and frown upon Germanic culture in general assuming they are 'the moderates' fighting some extreme 'fascists', still to this day; ironically the most hardcore Belgian nationalist - sometimes Dutch-speaking himself - frowns upon the majority of his own compatriots, together with the fakeness of our country the reason of low patriotism, especially among Flemings; and common people are no radicals and never will be). Flanders IS receiving a growing disinterest in Francophone culture however, because being associated with these submissive types claiming we're not Germanic and dreaming of subjugating us to the Francophonie (someone who knows our situation has called me such here lol), this is cooled down our love. Also the myth that Dutch be impossible to learn for a Francophone has helped creating a disinterest in French, and many Flemish see English as their 'liberation' from this dominance (also explains why we're even more Anglophile than the Dutch). Still, if we need to know French we learn it nonetheless and people capable of speaking this language there will always be. I also see the amount of Francophone Belgians knowing Dutch increasing, by the way, but still some even complain having to learn it in Flanders, propagandically calling it "human rights abuse" (root of Francophobia in Flanders, even our immigrants; even from former French colonies often don't like to learn French here; media often stir up the communitarian anger on both sides because it sells their papers).

Why do they call it "human rights abuse"? Imagine yourself being a Francophone Brusseler. You live on an island surrounded by an administratively Dutch-speaking area. Francophones don't like Brussels being detached from Wallonia and that's why they're very imperialistic in Flanders, making them greatly disliked on their turn (younger generation of Francophones is less imperialistic and younger Flemings are more mature, good evolution).
Off topic this may be: a weapon they use for this imperialism is convincing the common people Dutch be an extremely difficult language compared to the "easy-to-learn" French. Easily done, as Dutch and Flemings have a stoic self-harming behaviour. The major reason remains the small area our language is spoken in, but also both imperialism of others as Dutch-speaking stoicism are some other reasons.
Some older Flemings and low-class types choose between extreme submission toward Francophones or slight hostility toward them. The younger schooled generation behaves normal. Also Francophones act more normal once you go up on the social and down on the generational ladder.

I have one Francophone friend living in Flanders (in Wemmel), he speaks Dutch with a French accent. He always complains that some Flemings switch to broken French (while he speaks very fluently Dutch and even can speak Brabantian dialect) or they become unfriendly when they hear him speaking French to one of his friends or when he picks up the telephone. Whenever they speak this broken French to him, his reaction is: "act normal!". lol I'm sure Dutch also act like this toward Anglophones (except for the unfriendliness). My Francophone friends have no problems speaking Dutch in the Netherlands though.
It still shocks me to seeing the most vicious hardcore reactions from readers living in the Brussels periphery when reading articles La Libre though. But people reacting to newspapers are the frustrated segment in Flanders, also in Francophonia I guess.

<<those Dutch hate themselves so much>>

<<self-hate. >>


Indeed. It is no coincidence the Netherlands is one of the only countries where Euthanasia is legal.

Dutch is almost a hybrid of German and English and if you already know one of those languages it shouldn't be hard to grasp Dutch. If you speak German and English then Dutch would come pretty easily I reckon.

But Dutch does sound very harsh and the guttaral tones may make people think the language is more difficult than it actually is.

Also, a major barrier for learners is the almost universal unwillingness of the Dutch people to speak their language with outsiders. How can you practise if the natives immediately switch to English when they hear a foreign accent? Even if you can speak decent Dutch, they are not impressed. I have never heard of this attitude occurring anywhere else in the world.

«Also, a major barrier for learners is the almost universal unwillingness of the Dutch people to speak their language with outsiders. How can you practise if the natives immediately switch to English when they hear a foreign accent? Even if you can speak decent Dutch, they are not impressed. I have never heard of this attitude occurring anywhere else in the world.»

I stilll think that in Rotterdam is not so much like that. It's more an inward Dutch society as compared to Amsterdam.
I'm not a native English speaker and I often encountered quite the opposite situation: Dutch people refusing to speak in English to me.
There's obviously a good side in that which is to boost my knowledge of Dutch which is far from perfect.
Many Dutch aren't really friendly people in any language anyway, and that reduces a lot my comunication with them.
Besides I found Dutch people who couldn't speak English and they were not cheating. There's some exageration in saying that all the Dutch and Flemings are fluent in English. The majority is in different degrees, but not all.

It is easy to understand sense of texts written in Dutch without learning of Dutch language.

I've never understood some german friends who said they could undersand easily dutch language. I know a bit of german, and for me, dutch language is quite different. I can recognize indeed some typical mutations (ex : "au" to "ui" or "ch" to "k"...), but it remains a foreign language.

Portugueses understand some Spanish, Germans understand some Dutch.

<< They lament their whole lives with great regret and bitterness that English wasn't their native language >>

<< -- Exactly. Especially in the Netherlands. >>

I don't think so. If they do then they would have switched to English gradually at the beginning of 20th century.

Like the Scandinavians, most of them learn English enough to be understood even if it's broken or lots of mispronunciation of words or grammatical errors.

Just to be understood in English would be enough for them. Very basic English.

It seems that native speakers of languages only marginally grammatically more complex than English like to delude themselves that their mother tongue is extremely difficult. I remember a Swedish person telling me once that Swedish was much more difficult than English. Really?

<< Germans understand some Dutch. >>

-- It's rather the other way round.



<< they would have switched to English gradually at the beginning of 20th century >>

-- Widespread English fluency is a recent phenomenon in the Netherlands. It really started in the post WW-2 years.


<< Like the Scandinavians >>

-- There's a difference though. Scandinavians have for their culture an immense pride the Dutch sadly lack (less so in Flanders).


Many Germans used to say that Dutch was a cluster of lousy Low German dialects that for some historical mishap became an official national language, which for that reason had been unable to develop a great literature (the Low Countries focussed on painting instead, and quite successfully). Of course this politically uncorrect concept is no longer loudly outspoken but still lingers on in Germany.

<<Many Germans used to say that Dutch was a cluster of lousy Low German dialects that for some historical mishap became an official national language>>
Castilian and Portuguese were dialects of Ibero Latin and both became official languages.