Writing/ spelling/ pronounciation

So far I have mostly listened to the tapes. Now I opened my grammar book for the first time. It's time to find out, how Dutch is written.


The book (Dutch Essential Grammar).  seems quite good, it has all the basic stuff, couple of exercises + answer key. It uses the correct grammatical tems, but doesn't go too deep into the linquistics. Some study books tend to avoid grammar, claiming that they teach grammar "naturally", but for anyone who knows what "a verb" or "definite article" is, it's always faster to learn using the proper terminology. Essential grammar deliver what it promises, so if you are studying Dutch, I can warmly recommend this book.

At glance, Dutch grammar doesn't look difficult. It has more declinations and conjugations than English, but less than French.


I like Dutch spelling, since it seems to be quite regular. Only some vowels trick me, for example "e" seems to be sometimes very frontal, like [ø]. For example the word "het" (it) sounded like [øt] to me.

I also like the long vowels, "word" in Dutch is spelled "woord", because the vowel is long. This is very characteristic of Dutch, and I noticed before I was able to read anything in Dutch. It's very familiar to me, because Finnish has the same system (and of course, this system is the most logical).

This was also a great help:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ObPq9xu6srs