Dutch and German: Language Similarities and Differences

Dutch and German are related languages that belong to the same family: the Germanic languages. They are even more closely related as they are on the same branch (West Germanic languages) which also includes English. Another branch, the North Germanic languages, includes languages such as Norwegian, Icelandic, Danish, and Swedish.

The High German consonant shift

Dutch and German share many cognates (words that come from the same etymological ancestor). But many of these words have different spellings due to a phenomenon called the High German consonant shift.

Between the 3rd and the 8th century, the German language underwent some changes in pronunciation. These changes did not occur in the other Germanic languages (like Dutch and English) leading to a divergence between German and Dutch.

The three main high German consonant shifts are the following:

• the (d→t) consonant shift
• the (t→z) consonant shift
• the (k→ch) consonant shift

Dutch and German have fewer words from Latin (compared to English)

There is a historical reason which explains why English has more Latin-derived vocabulary words than German and Dutch.

The Norman conquest of England in 1066 caused Old Norman, a French dialect, to become the language of the Anglo-Norman government. Over several centuries, this French dialect gained wide usage in the royal court, church, and justice system of England. As a result, many French vocabulary words, which originated from Latin, entered English as loanwords, replacing some of the original Germanic terms.

In contrast, Dutch and German have not had as many of their original Germanic vocabulary words replaced by Latin-based words.

My experience learning German after Dutch

The author is a native English speaker who learned Dutch for 5 years, and after that moved to Germany. In this article, he discusses the similarities between Dutch and German, and how those made it much easier for him to learn German.

As I walked to my German A2 course for the first time one brisk September morning in Berlin, I was feeling a tad trepidatious. While I knew the basic German greetings from my previous visits to the city which I now call home, I had never taken a German language course before.

Yet here I was, strolling straight past the A1 Level, as though I already knew it all. I felt like an imposter.

"You'll be fine! You know Dutch." The reassuring words of my partner rang in my head as I neared the German language school. But I wondered if any confidence I might perceive in myself wasn't just hubris.

I knew there were similarities between Dutch and German. But could enough overlap really exist to save me from making a fool of myself?

I took my seat, and the language class began. My teacher spoke only in German, and my classmates nodded along in perfect sync with the stream of sentences flowing from her mouth. Remarkably, so did I.

Could I understand the nuance of every word? No. But what the teacher said wasn't gibberish. I could tell where sentences began and ended, and enough of the German vocabulary words were similar to Dutch that I could figure out a lot through context.

Maybe I wasn't an imposter after all.

The Similarities between Dutch and German

Vocabulary similarities

The close relationship between English, German, and Dutch can be seen (but not as easily heard) with words and phrases like:

(English [EN] / German [DE] / Dutch [NL])

• Good / Gut / Goed
• Day / Tag / Dag
• Bread / Brot / Brood
• Bed / Bett / Bed

While Dutch has more in common with English vocabulary than German does, there is significantly more overlap in the lexicons of German and Dutch than either one shares with English. Consider the following words:

• Dog / Hund / Hond
• To Play / Spielen / Spelen
• Small / Klein / Klein
• Fast / Schnell / Snel

Of course, any list of examples only begins to scratch the surface. To be more succinct, the lexicons of German and Dutch overlap in a way similar to those of Spanish and Italian.

Similarities in grammar and syntax

Simple German and Dutch sentences that use the present tense follow the basic subject-verb-object structure used in English.

• [EN] The dog runs to the tree.
• [DE] Der Hund rennt zum Baum.
• [NL] De hond rent naar de boom.

In contrast to English, sentences in German and Dutch change their word orders frequently. For instance, when a sentence begins with an adverb like “yesterday” or “actually,” the verb should come before the subject of the sentence, like so:

• [EN] Actually, I want that.
• [DE] Eigentlich will ich das.
• [NL] Eigenlijk wil ik dat.

The suffix '-lich' in German and the suffix '-lijk' in Dutch have similar pronunciations, and they are typically used to denote adverbs. They are like the suffix '-ly' which is often added to English adjectives to construct adverbs.

German and Dutch sentence structure also changes when auxiliary verbs are used. Auxiliary verbs, sometimes called “helping verbs”, are verbs like “have” or “seem”, which require the use of another verb, in the infinitive form, to complete the statement:

• [EN] I have to see it.
• [DE] Ich muss es sehen.
• [NL] Ik moet het zien.

Note that in the German and Dutch versions of the statement, the verbs «sehen» and «zien» ("to see") are placed at the end of the sentence.

Returning to the first day in my A2 German course, the grammar lesson that morning was on constructing sentences using the conjunction «weil» («because»). I already knew how to do this using the Dutch equivalent: «omdat».

• [EN] I want to sit in the sun because I am cold.
• [DE] Ich möchte in der Sonne sitzen, weil mir kalt ist.
• [NL] Ik wil in de zon zitten omdat ik het koud heb.

In this case, the verb of the secondary clause always goes to the very end of the sentence.

When I was first learning Dutch, this grammar rule proved very confusing. But by the time I started learning German, I had already thoroughly internalized it.

My prior knowledge not only made it easier for me to transfer the concept to German but was also key in helping me follow along with my teacher during class that morning.

Dutch-German Vocabulary False Friends

Some German and Dutch words appear similar but have different meanings. Language learners refer to these word pairs as “false friends”.

German and Dutch: the differences

German and Dutch clearly have significant similarities, but their differences are numerous as well. They are distinct languages, after all.

Spelling and Pronunciation

Dutch and German utilize many of the same sounds, but they have vastly different rules for spelling.

When reading Dutch, one notices the frequent use of vowels and unfamiliar letter combinations, while German's dauntingly long words and regular use of umlauts tend to intimidate new learners.

Some basic German-Dutch spelling and pronunciation differences are as follows:

• In Dutch, «eu» and «oe» are equivalent to «ö» and «u» in German, respectively.
• The letter «g» in Dutch is always soft. In German, «g» sounds the same as in English, unless it sits at the end of a word, in which case it makes a «k»-sound.
• German uses the symbol «ß», which new learners often think looks like a «B», and so they try to pronounce it as such. Actually, it is pronounced like a sustained «s»-sound.
• Dutch occasionally uses the umlaut but never to change the pronunciation of a letter. For example, the word for “sea urchin” is “zeeëgel,” which combines the words “zee” (meaning “sea”) and “egel” (meaning “hedgehog”). The umlaut over the third “e” just shows where the word “egel” begins, so we remember to pronounce that letter too.

Many Dutch words which start with the letter combination “vr” correspond to German words which start with “fr”:

Grammatical differences

Generally speaking, the rules of German grammar are much more complicated and complex than those of Dutch. Take the following examples, for instance:

• German uses four cases. Dutch uses very few cases and only for personal pronouns. You can find the remains of cases in old Dutch words still in use today. For instance, the word « 's morgens» is short for «Des morgens» the old genitive form of “the morning”, abbreviated and understood today as “in the morning.”
• German uses three articles—the masculine (der), the feminine (die), and the neuter (das). Dutch only uses two: the common (de), and the neuter (het).
• It is crucial to memorize which article goes with which word in German since gender often determines multiple other aspects of a sentence. In Dutch, using the correct article is also important, but making an educated guess is much less risky.
• In German, word order is very strict while Dutch sentences tend to be a bit more flexible.
• Germans still use the formal you pronoun (Sie) frequently. Dutch speakers use their equivalent, (U), less, especially in the Dutch-speaking regions of Belgium.

To continue learning about the similarities and differences between Dutch and German, have a look at these lists of the 1000 most common Dutch words, and the 1000 most common German words.