Dutch is the official language of the Netherlands and is one of three official languages in Belgium, where it is called Flemish. Pimsleur's Dutch teaches Standard Dutch, or "Newsreader Dutch," which is widely understood and accepted in the Netherlands. Dutch and Flemish are mutually intelligible.
This Comprehensive course includes 30 lessons of essential grammar and vocabulary -- 16 hours of real-life spoken practice sessions -- plus an introduction to reading. Upon completion of this program, you will have functional spoken proficiency with the most-frequently-used vocabulary and grammatical structures.
In the first 10 lessons, you'll cover the basics: saying hello, asking for or giving information, scheduling a meal or a meeting, asking for or giving basic directions, and much more. You'll be able to handle minimum courtesy requirements, understand much of what you hear, and be understood at a beginning level, but with near-native pronunciation skills.
In the next 10 lessons, you'll build on what you've learned. Expand your menu, increase your scheduling abilities from general to specific, start to deal with currency and exchanging money, refine your conversations and add over a hundred new vocabulary items. You'll understand more of what you hear, and be able to participate with speech that is smoother and more confident.
In the final 10 lessons of Phase 1, you'll be speaking and understanding at an intermediate level. In this phase, more directions are given in the target language, which moves your learning to a whole new plane. Lessons include shopping, visiting friends, going to a restaurant, plans for the evening, car trips, and talking about family. You'll be able to speak comfortably about things that happened in the past and make plans for the future.
Reading Lessons begin in Unit 11 and provide you with an introduction to reading Dutch. These lessons are designed to teach you to sound out words with correct pronunciation and accent. In addition, combined Reading Lessons from all the units are included at the end. A Reading Booklet to be used with the audio lessons is also included in PDF format.
