Dutch Podcasts - 3 reasons why you need them

Learning Dutch? You need to use podcasts made for Dutch learning! In books you will find words and grammar, but there's often a lack of listening material. Spoken texts for language learners are often boring and many Dutch students even turn to kids movies and series to expose themselves to enough Dutch. Especially Dutch language learners that don't live in The Netherlands soon notice it's not that easy to find opportunities to listen to Dutch. Podcasts meant for Dutch people are often too hard to follow, especially if you are a beginner or intermediate Dutch learner.

With the podcasts of The Dutch Online Academy you can pick a podcast that fits your level and listen to it with or without reading the transcripts. Lengths and topics of the podcasts vary, but you'll often learn something about Dutch culture while you practice your Dutch listening skills. You will also get used to a variety of voices, since The Dutch Online Academy works together with people from all kind of parts of The Netherlands.

Do Dutch people speak really fast? No, not really. Think about your native language, to a language learner it probably sounds fast too. The speed of talking differs a bit between languages, but Dutch is not extraordinarily fast, but if you are learning Dutch you might have noticed that there is a big difference between the Dutch you hear while studying (with a teacher, a friend, your partner of just by listening to Dutch learning material online) and the "real" world. Students can get demotivated by the reply from a native speaker after asking "hoe gaat het"? Some students don't even have the possibility to talk to native speakers, since they live abroad. For them, Dutch podcasts are even more important!

Our podcasts offer a comfortable and controlled environment to practice your Dutch listening skills. You can read along with the texts and pick a level that fits you. The podcasts for Dutch A1 are a bit slower than A2 and so on, but we ensure you that in all our podcasts you will hear native speakers talk in a natural way. Of course the vocabulary gets more difficult every level, so you can challenge yourself if you like or focus on the most frequent used Dutch vocabulary to lay your foundation.

The good thing about podcasts is that you can use them wherever you go! Just download our Dutch podcasts on Spotify, Apple podcasts or Google podcasts or simply listen to them using our website. You can improve your Dutch while walking the dog or on the way to work! Challenge yourself by trying to follow the whole story before reading the transcript.

Dutch learning takes time and perseverance. We at The Dutch Online Academy are trying our best to hand you the resources that can make your life easier and improve your Dutch faster. Beside Dutch podcasts, we also offer lessons, grammar explanations in both Dutch and English (with exercises!) and articles.