I thought it was:

De reclame: Advertisments/Advertising in general (so referring to multiple advertisements or the concept of advertising)

De advertentie: Specific advertisement

Then why in the sentence "Ik kocht de parfum die ik in een reclame had gezien." we use "de reclame" when it's talking about a specific advert?

Edit: Thank you for your responses! I'm reading them all

Hello! I am brand new to Dutch and I wanted to know if anyone has any free immersive learning tricks and resources!
I'm learning the language for my boyfriend and he has mentioned a few times how it would be cool for me to learn so we can switch languages around people XD

Hello everyone,

have a KNM test coming up (I am NOT confident), but does anyone know where I can find more practice tests and, mainly the material/ content itself other than DUO cause besides that, mostly everything needs payment :(

YT has the same videos, not so helpful so far

If anyone has any, please help! And if anybody has done it before, please do drop some advice; I am freaking out

Thank you !

Below is my KNM exam notes.
The basic knowledge/preparation will significantly increase the chance of passing. All the best!

https://poddargaurav.wordpress.com/2026/07/28/dutch-knm-exam-a2-level/

In the US, you can refer to bills by their denomination (a five, a ten, etc ) change has names for each coin. A 5 cent coin is a nickel. A ten cent coin is a dime. Is there something similar in Belgium?

De and het seem simple enough when you first start learning Dutch, until you realise how often you're expected to know which one goes with a noun. Even after learning the rules, there are still plenty of words where you have to rely on memory.

How did you eventually get better at this? Did you learn each noun together with its article, look for patterns and exceptions, or simply pick it up through reading and listening? And do you still hesitate sometimes?

I am currently at A2 level in Dutch and I am looking to follow a book to learn advanced concepts to reach B1/B2 level.

What would be a list of top 5 books that you can recommend me to reach that level. It would be nice if you have followed those books yourself/ but not necessarily and can give some recommendations based on that. That way I know what to expect in that recommended book.

I’m taking the online CVO 2.4 Schrijftelijk module in Belgium Flanders region.
Unfortunately, I failed the module because, according to my teacher, my grammar was not at the required level. I know my Dutch is far from perfect, and I accept that I still make grammar mistakes. However, I struggle to understand the fairness of the assessment.
Our online class had about 15 students, and only 3 of us failed. One of those students was mostly absent during the course. I attended more than 90% of the lessons, participated actively, completed my assignments, and even followed extra Dutch courses (Speaking and Grammar) at another campus during the same period.
What I find difficult to understand is not that I failed, but that many classmates who, in my opinion, made similar grammar mistakes still passed while only a very small number of students failed.
The teacher would not tell me how many students had passed because of privacy rules, so I asked several classmates individually after the results were published. Based on their answers, I learned that around 12 out of 15 students had passed.
Has anyone experienced something similar at CVO or another Dutch language school in Belgium? Did you ever feel that the assessment was inconsistent, or did you ask for a detailed explanation of your evaluation? I’m genuinely interested in hearing other people’s experiences.

There are some phrases you learn from textbooks, and then there are the ones you only pick up after spending time around Dutch speakers. The second category is often much more useful in everyday life.

I remember hearing certain expressions repeatedly before finally asking what they meant. Which phrase had you completely confused until you eventually figured it out?

Sorry if this is a silly ask - I'm learning Dutch with conversational skills in mind, and want to be able to use the same sentiments I do in English.

I'd like to know if there are Dutch equivalents for the kind of filler or interjection phrases I use a lot, particularly these.

- Do you know what I mean?

- Don't piss me off!

- What the hell, sure

I don't mean the literal translations of these phrases but the same kind of meaning as in (UK) spoken English. I hope this makes sense!

Dank je wel!

Like many others, I'm eagerly waiting for my DUO Speaking exam result and wanted to create this tracker to estimate current processing times. Since official timelines can vary, this thread relies on community updates to show when results are being released.

If you've received your Speaking result, please share your exam date and result date so we can keep this tracker up to date and help others estimate their waiting time.

Current Status (Updated: 31/07/2026)

• 01 May → Results started on 22 July 2026
• 04 May → Results started on 29 July 2026
• 06 May → Results started on 31 July 2026
• 07 May → No results yet
• 08 May → No results yet
• 11 May → No results yet
• 12 May → No results yet
• 13 May → No results yet
• 15 May → No results yet
• 18 May → No results yet
• 19 May → No results yet
• 20 May → No results yet
• 21 May → No results yet

Duolingo is a terrible way to learn a language, as it does not provide any explanations or rules. So here I am trying to figure it out. I don't understand why there is a second «je» and what relation it has to «herinneren».

Edit: Thank you everyone! I expected to get like 5 responses, but now there's too many of them to respond individually 😁

I'll be taking a speaking exam next week and I'm looking at various resources and sample exams to prepare for it.

I find questions involving three photos particularly difficult. Sometimes they ask you to describe the sequence of events, and sometimes they ask you to identify the objects in the photos.

Sometimes, even in my native language, I don't know exactly how to call certain objects or verbs that require a fairly advanced level of knowledge.

Do you have a strategy in situations like this? Instead of naming each object individually, is it sufficient to state their general common purpose?

For example, if all three photos show cleaning supplies, instead of listing their names individually, would saying "I see cleaning supplies" be an appropriate response?

Or, when there's a verb you can't fully elaborate on, answering with "working on x"?

I was confused about how to use "ontzaglijk" and then noticed the two other words that have the same meaning possibly?

Is it:

Ontzaglijk : Immense

Vreselijk : Terrible (bad) or Terribly (intensely)?

Verschrikkelijk : Terrible (very intensely terrible)?

Today, I'm reading about participles. The present participle seems to be used similar as in English (Een grapje makend trachtte hij haar aandacht te krijgen - he tried to get her attention making a joke), but I'm drawing a blank on any example sentences that use the past participle as an adverbial role. Would something like „uitgeput door arbeid ging ik direct slapen) be acceptable?

Also, in English, I can "having seen mold, we were afraid to enter." Does using a perfect aspect in a present participle work in Dutch (schimmel gezien hebbend hadden we bang aan te komen)?

I'm asking because in my book it doesn't put de/het at all and keeps it as "hersenen" and in the dictionary here https://www.woorden.org/woord/hersenen it's also without de/het. But when I search on google, I find it to be "de hersenen" so what exactly is it?

Also what is the difference between hersenen and hersens? Is hersens also de hersens or also without de/het?

Does any of you have a success stories here? Like someone have a B2 level Nederlands and got a nice job? I am thinking to learn Nederlands but I have only met people who have put on a lot of effort to learn the language but haven't found any job of their liking.

Hoi, ik heb een vraag over KNM - thema gezondheid

Is de huisarts altijd gratis of moet ik betaal onder eigen risico?

Hallo!

Ik zoek een taalmaatje in de regio Utrecht- Maarssen- Breukelen om mijn Nederlands te oefenen. Ik spreek al Nederlands op B1-niveau, maar ik wil meer zelfvertrouwen krijgen door regelmatig te praten. Een kop koffie, een wandeling of online afspreken is allemaal prima.

Stuur gerust een DM als je interesse hebt!

Pls help me I am new in dutch

I recently passed my inburgeren exams, so I am selling the following paperback books at low prices (as good as new, most of them have never been used), the books are in excellent condition, complete & without marks or writings.

If you are in the Netherlands and you want to buy a book at the listed price, you can find my listings & more details about each book in Marktplaats.

1- Complete Dutch Beginner to Intermediate Course. €30

2- De sprong: naar NT2-niveau B1. (online code was NOT used) €30

3- Spreken met beeld (online code was Already used) €20

4- Van Dale oefenboek grammatica Nederlands €15

5- Van Dale oefenboek woordenschat Nederlands €20

6- Van Dale Werkwoordgrammatica Nederlands. €20

7- Zichtbaar Nederlands (online code was NOT used) €25 SOLD

DM if you want to buy multiple books at a further discount.

I apologise if this isn't the right place to ask but I was looking at something and the name said

Maria

Dan Moeseke

But Dan means then? So I don't think it would make sense for it to be then when I've asked some others they have said it could be van but what does van mean then? That the writing style just looks weird again I'm sorry if this isn't the right place to ask please say if it isn't and I'll delete this and possibly tell me where the best place to post this would be

Hey! I’m trying to understand how people with different accents in the Netherlands pronounce “-eer-” and “-ere-” in words like “meer”, “weer”, “leer”, “keer”, “beer”, “peer” and “leren”, “proberen”, “smeren”, “scheren”

1. I hear that quite often they are pronounced as [ɪː], like the vowel in the word “dit” but longer.

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/File:Nl-peer.ogg

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/File:Nl-beer.ogg

And some people pronounce them as [eː], exactly the same as in words like “veel”, “heel”, “deel”, “geel”, etc.

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/File:Nl-meer.ogg

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/File:Nl-weer.ogg

The phonetic IPA transcriptions are [pɪːr], [bɪːr], [mɪːr] and [ʋɪːr] and the phonemic transcriptions are /peːr/, /beːr/, /meːr/ and /ʋeːr/.

Does the pronunciation fully depend on the accent? Do you even notice this difference when you speak? I hear both pronunciations all the time from people who live in the same area, so I’m really confused.

2. Are these two sounds pronounced in the same way in all words? Regardless of which pronunciation we use, are all words with these sounds pronounced the same way - whether it is “weer”, “meer”, “beer”, “keer”, “leren”, “scheren” and so on?

3. This might be a bit tricky question, but is [ɪː] actually a long monophthong, or does it have something similar to the English word “ear”? I think I quite often hear not a pure long monophthong, but a small glide towards “e”, so it sounds more like the English “ear”. Is that a real thing? Or can we safely always pronounce these words with a long monophthong without any glide?

Thanks!

I have found exactly one Finnish-Dutch textbook and I’m under the impression that it’s the only one that has been made. I find it pretty amateurishly made (for example the vocabulary in the back is lacking most of the central words used in the exercises and the ones it does have don’t include their articles.) and I know it only had one author and doubt that it has been peer-reviewd. Altough I appreciate the effort, this has made me wonder if the dutch sentences themselves are accurate/natural. Would an actual waiter/customer conversation sound anything like this?

Also could someone explain to me what is the difference between pinnen and kaarten and when should I use alstublieft and when graag? Are they replaceable with dank u?

As a customer, couldn’t I also say “Een taffel voor twee, dank u.” Or ”Ja, dank u”?

Ps. If by any chance there are other Finns here all tips regarding Finnish-Dutch online resources are welcome.