This cheat sheet covers the Dutch basics students need for first conversations, classroom practice, and travel-style speaking tasks. It focuses on greetings, polite expressions, numbers, and simple sentence patterns that appear often in beginner Dutch. Students can use it as a quick binder reference when speaking, listening, or writing short dialogues.
The goal is to make common phrases easy to find and easy to pronounce.
Key Facts
- Use Hallo or Hoi for informal hello, and Goedemorgen, Goedemiddag, or Goedenavond for more formal greetings.
- To ask how someone is, say Hoe gaat het?, and to answer, say Het gaat goed, Het gaat wel, or Niet zo goed.
- To introduce yourself, say Ik heet Ana or Mijn naam is Ana, which both mean My name is Ana.
- Dutch numbers 0-10 are nul, een, twee, drie, vier, vijf, zes, zeven, acht, negen, tien.
- Dutch numbers 11-20 are elf, twaalf, dertien, veertien, vijftien, zestien, zeventien, achttien, negentien, twintig.
- For 21-99, Dutch usually says ones + en + tens, so 24 is vierentwintig and 57 is zevenenvijftig.
- To say your age, use Ik ben 13 jaar or Ik ben 13, not Ik heb 13 jaar.
- Use alstublieft in formal situations and alsjeblieft in informal situations to mean please or here you are.
Vocabulary
- Goedemorgen
- Goedemorgen means good morning and is used earlier in the day as a polite greeting.
- Dank je
- Dank je means thank you and is used in informal or friendly situations.
- Alstublieft
- Alstublieft means please or here you are and is used in formal or polite situations.
- Hoe gaat het?
- Hoe gaat het? means how are you and is a common way to start a short conversation.
- Ik heet
- Ik heet means I am called and is used before your name when introducing yourself.
- Tot ziens
- Tot ziens means goodbye or see you and is appropriate in most situations.
Common Mistakes to Avoid
- Saying Ik heb 12 jaar for age is wrong because Dutch uses zijn for age. Say Ik ben 12 jaar or Ik ben 12.
- Putting tens before ones in numbers like 24 is wrong in standard Dutch. Say vierentwintig, which is four and twenty.
- Using jij with every adult is too informal in many situations. Use u when speaking politely to an adult, teacher, or stranger.
- Confusing dank je and alsjeblieft changes the meaning of a sentence. Dank je means thank you, while alsjeblieft means please or here you are.
- Pronouncing goede in greetings as if every letter is English can make the phrase hard to understand. Practice Goedemorgen and Goedenavond as whole phrases.
Practice Questions
- 1 Write the Dutch number for 38.
- 2 Translate into Dutch: I am 15 years old.
- 3 Choose the better polite phrase for speaking to a teacher: alsjeblieft or alstublieft.
- 4 Explain when you would use Hoi instead of Goedemiddag in a conversation.