A1Beginner
Dutch for beginners: your first 90 days (plan, words, first texts)
In 90 days at five hours a week you can go from nothing to reading a short Dutch text about daily life with a glossary, and following a slow conversation about your day. Not fluency: the first floor. Here is the week-by-week plan I would follow if I started again, the words to learn first, and the first texts and the first book.
Before you start: three decisions
A course book. You need one, and only one. In a class it will be Nederlands in gang or De opmaat; alone, Complete Dutch (Teach Yourself) explains the grammar in English and comes with audio. The books for beginners page compares them. Do not buy two.
Lessons or not. Lessons give you correction and a reason to show up. If you can afford one or two a week, take them; if not, a language exchange or the free Taalcafé at the library once a week does the correcting. Either way, the lessons are the smaller part of your week. The daily twenty minutes are the bigger part.
The daily slot. Pick a time that already exists: the tram, the coffee, the ten minutes before sleep. Twenty minutes every day beats two hours on Sunday, because a language is built by meeting the same words again tomorrow.
Weeks 1 to 4: the sounds, the present tense, your first 100 words
Month one is about the ear and the first sentences. Play every dialogue in the course book before you read it, then read along, then say it. Learn the sounds that do not exist in English (g and ch in the throat, ui, eu, the difference between a long and a short vowel) by copying the audio, not by reading about them. Grammar: the present tense (ik werk, jij werkt, wij werken), the two articles de and het as part of every noun you learn, and the question words.
Words: aim for a hundred by the end of the month, all from the dialogues, all with the article. Say them in the sentence you met them in, not alone. By week four you can introduce yourself, order a coffee, ask where something is and understand the answer if the person is kind.
Weeks 5 to 8: the sentence and your first texts
Month two is where Dutch starts to look like Dutch. You learn that the verb comes second in a sentence whatever comes first (Morgen ga ik naar Amsterdam), that a second verb goes to the end (Ik wil morgen naar Amsterdam gaan), and that in a clause after dat, omdat or als the verb goes to the end too. You will not get this right when speaking for a year. You can get it right when reading from week five, and reading it a thousand times is how it eventually comes out right in speech.
Start reading outside the course book in week six: the shortest texts on this site, with the audio, once a day. You will tap a lot of words. That is the point of the glossary. Read Het weer in Nederland first, then the shortest of the A2 stories: Op de markt and Bij de huisarts. Read each one twice, a day apart.
Weeks 9 to 13: reading every day, the perfect tense, your first book
Month three adds the perfect tense (ik heb gewerkt, ik ben geweest), which is how Dutch talks about yesterday, and the separable verbs that split in two (ik sta op, ik bel je op). With those, every A2 text is open to you. Read one a day, re-read yesterday's, and start saying two sentences about each text aloud. In week ten, open the first chapter of a book at A2 and read it with the glossary, a page a day. In week thirteen, take the free level test: most people who have done the daily reading land at the top of A1 or the start of A2.
| Weeks | Learn | Read and listen | Say |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 to 4 | Sounds, present tense, de and het, question words, 100 words | Every course-book dialogue: listen, read along, repeat | Introduce yourself, order, ask the way |
| 5 to 8 | Word order (verb second, verb to the end), 200 words | The shortest texts on this site, once a day, twice each, with audio | Two sentences about each text, aloud |
| 9 to 13 | Perfect tense, separable verbs, 300 words | One A2 text a day plus a re-read; the first chapter of an A2 book | A minute about your day; a conversation a week in Dutch only |
The first 300 words: where they come from
Three hundred words cover more than half of everything said in daily Dutch, because the small words repeat so much. Learn them from your texts, in the order they come, but know what the three hundred are made of so you can see the gaps.
| Group | About | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| Pronouns and small words | 50 | ik, jij, hij, zij, wij, u, dit, dat, hier, daar, niet, geen, ook, nog, al, heel |
| Verbs | 40 | zijn, hebben, gaan, komen, doen, maken, willen, kunnen, moeten, zeggen, zien, weten, werken, wonen, eten |
| Connectors and question words | 20 | en, maar, of, want, omdat, als, dat; wie, wat, waar, wanneer, hoe, waarom |
| Numbers, time, days | 40 | een tot honderd, vandaag, morgen, gisteren, de week, de dag, maandag, het uur, laat, vroeg |
| People and home | 40 | de man, de vrouw, het kind, de vriend, de buurvrouw, het huis, de kamer, de deur, de tafel, het bed |
| Food and shopping | 40 | het brood, de kaas, de melk, de appel, de koffie, de winkel, de markt, duur, goedkoop, betalen |
| Town and transport | 30 | de straat, de stad, de fiets, de trein, de tram, het station, links, rechts, rechtdoor, ver |
| Work, school, health | 25 | het werk, de collega, de school, de les, de dokter, de afspraak, ziek, moe, de pijn |
| Feelings and reactions | 15 | leuk, mooi, lekker, goed, slecht, blij, moeilijk, makkelijk, graag, sorry, dank je wel |
Every one of these words appears in the free A2 texts, most of them many times, which is why reading the texts beats learning the list: you meet the word with its article, in a sentence, with the audio saying it.
Your first texts
In the first month, the texts in your course book, read until you can read them aloud at the speed of the recording. From week six, the shortest texts on this site: they are written at A2, which is one step above you, and that is the right place for a text to be. Read the Wie is wie list first so you know who is who, play the audio, read along, tap the underlined words. Expect to understand the story and not every sentence. Three texts to start with: Op de markt, Bij de huisarts and Een nieuwe fiets. All A2 texts are free, with audio.
Your first book
Not Jip en Janneke, whatever the shelf says: past tense, diminutives and idiom make it a B1 book. At A1, Nijntje (Dick Bruna) is the one children's series that is really A1, and a picture book from the library with one sentence a page does the same job. In month three, start a graded reader at A2: a whole story, written inside the level, with the hard words explained. Finishing a book is the moment Dutch stops being a subject and becomes a language you read.
The first two books
- A1
Nijntje (Dick Bruna)
Twelve pages, four lines a page, present tense, a rhyme you remember. Cheap, and in every library. Read it aloud.
- A2
Saïdjah en Adinda
A Dutch classic at A2: three chapters, about 3,000 words, a glossary after every chapter, questions with answers, free audio. The first chapter is free on this site; read it in week ten.
Out on 15 December 2026
Can I learn Dutch in three months?
To the first floor, yes: at five hours a week you reach the top of A1 or the start of A2, enough to read a short text with a glossary and manage a slow conversation about your day. Not enough for a job interview or a newspaper. Full time, in an intensive course with daily reading, three months can take you to A2.
What should a beginner read in Dutch?
First the dialogues in your course book, aloud. Then short texts written for learners at A2 with a glossary and audio, like the free texts on this site, twice each. Then a graded reader at A2. Not children's books for Dutch children, which use the past tense and words a five-year-old knows and you do not.
Do I need to learn de and het from the start?
Yes, as part of each word, not as a rule. About three in four nouns are de-words, all plurals are de, all diminutives (-je) are het, and the rest you learn with the word. Say het huis, de straat, never huis, straat. Dutch people understand you with the wrong article; the adjective endings and dit and dat depend on it, so getting it right early saves a lot of later mistakes.
Should I start with grammar or with words?
With sentences, which contain both. Learn the present tense and the word order from the dialogues you can already say, and let the course book name the rule afterwards. Grammar studied before you can read a page does not stick, because there is nothing for it to stick to.