Number of speakers: 28 million

Spoken in: The Netherlands, Belgium, Suriname, Aruba, Curaçao, St. Maarten, French Flanders

Type: Indo-European, Germanic, West Germanic, Low Franconian

Writing System: Latin script

Number of Grammatical Genders: Two, common ‘de’ and neuter ‘het’.

Number of Daughter Languages: One, Afrikaans. Afrikaans is considered to be a semi-creolized version of Dutch, with many loans from other languages, such as English, Malay and Zulu. Several other Dutch creole languages existed in the Caribbean and India, but have since died out.

Number of Words Derived from One Noun Compound: Always one. Dutch forms noun compounds without writing spaces in between, creating words such as ziektekostenverzekeringsmaatschappij, meaning health insurance company

Factoid: Dutch is well known for the frequent use of the diminutive suffix -tje, -je or -pje, as in mannetje ‘little man’. All words with singular diminutive suffixes are neuter.

Useful Phrases: Hello – Hallo, Hoi

How are you? – Hoe gaat het?

What is your name? – Hoe heet u?

Thank you – Dank u wel (f), Dank je wel (inf)

I love you – Ik hou van jou

Count to Ten: 1- een, 2- twee, 3- drie, 4- vier, 5- vijf, 6- zes, 7- zeven, 8- acht, 9- negen, 10- tien

Listen to Dutch: Dutch pop song