The best app to learn Dutch, in a country that answers in English
Dutch is one of the closest major languages to English, and the first weeks feel like a discount: water is water, drinken is to drink. The actual difficulty is not in the language but around it. The Netherlands speaks English so well that one hesitation flips the conversation, and your practice ends there. The app question is really: what gets you fluent enough, fast enough, that people stay in Dutch with you?
We make Vocabloot, one of the five below. We have been direct about what it does not do, and for a complete beginner we recommend starting elsewhere.
Five Dutch apps, and who each suits
Duolingo
- Best for
- Building the habit and basic reading
- Price
- Free with ads, around $7 a month without
- What it does well
- A decent Dutch course that exploits the English overlap well; simple sentences become readable fast, and free is enough to start.
- Where it falls short
- Word order, the actual hard part of Dutch, with verbs migrating to the end of the clause, is never explained, only endured. The de/het article split is likewise left to guesswork.
Babbel
- Best for
- Grammar and situation-based dialogue
- Price
- Around $15 a month, less on longer plans
- What it does well
- Explains the word-order inversions and the de/het system properly, and its dialogues rehearse the everyday exchanges you need to survive the switch-to-English reflex.
- Where it falls short
- Paid only, and it finishes. The audio is clearer than any Dutch person on a market street.
Anki
- Best for
- Vocabulary retention at scale
- Price
- Free, except $25 once on iPhone
- What it does well
- Best in class for retention, and Dutch frequency decks are solid. Learn each noun with its article on the card and the de/het problem shrinks steadily.
- Where it falls short
- No teaching, and false friends need care a deck rarely provides: eventueel does not mean eventually, and a card will not stop you.
Drops
- Best for
- Five-minute vocabulary top-ups
- Price
- Free for five minutes a day, around $10 a month for more
- What it does well
- Quick, attractive, and the native audio helps with the g and ui sounds that written Dutch hides from English eyes.
- Where it falls short
- Vocabulary only, no grammar, fixed lists, and Dutch word order is precisely the thing a word list cannot teach.
Vocabloot ours
- Best for
- Someone with basic grammar who wants everyday vocabulary
- Price
- Free during early access
- What it does well
- Point the camera at anything and it gives you the Dutch word with its article, pronunciation and an example sentence. De tafel, het raam: the article arrives welded to the object, which is the only reliable way to learn it.
- Where it falls short
- No grammar teaching, so it will not explain why the verb just moved to the end of your sentence. Use it for vocabulary alongside something else, and expect early-access rough edges.
Surviving the switch to English
Every Dutch learner has the same story: you open in Dutch, hesitate once, and the reply comes back in flawless English. It is meant kindly, and it is lethal to your progress.
The counter is preparation, not courage. Script your opening moves, the ordering, the greeting, the small purchases, until they come out fast and clean. Fluent-sounding fragments buy you whole conversations; a slow correct sentence buys you English.
And say the sentence learners swear by: 'Mag ik Nederlands oefenen?', may I practise Dutch? Most people will switch back, pleased you asked.
The honest recommendation
Starting from zero: Babbel if you can pay, Duolingo if you cannot. Babbel wins on word order, which is where Dutch is actually hard.
Living in the Netherlands or Flanders already: your environment is the course. Bank vocabulary from your own streets and shelves, and spend money on speaking practice rather than another app tier.
Reading comfortably but short of words: Anki or Vocabloot. Pick Vocabloot if you would rather learn the words for what is around you than work through a frequency deck.
Everyone: Dutch television with Dutch subtitles early. Spoken Dutch compresses in ways the apps' studio audio never does.
Try the camera approach
Snap anything and learn the word for it, with pronunciation and an example sentence.
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the App Store
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Google Play
Free during early access. We only use your email to send your invite.