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Immersion Blows Language Apps Out of the Water
Do you hesitate on the diving board or do you jump in without a second thought? Were you always that way or did something change?
Whether you plunge in head first or hold on to your life-preserver, share your instinct—I'll go first!
Have you ever been thrown into a pool? It’s rarely a pleasant experience—even worse if you don’t know how to doggy paddle. When I was younger, I told my mother I didn’t need to get in the water for my swimming lessons. I said I could pick everything up watching from the sidelines. As it turns out, there’s no substitute for the real thing. You can study the mechanics of the strokes on paper, but you can’t understand how it actually works without getting wet.
In the United States, there is no official language, yet many insist that “real Americans” must speak English. By and large, the population is monolingual…and yet many struggle to discern between “your” and “you’re.” (Although, somehow “you’re an idiot” just doesn’t cut as deeply.) Despite Dutch being the official language of the Netherlands, they do not expect everyone to speak it.
Nearly the entire population is bilingual, learning English in primary school. Thanks in large part to the country’s history in global trade, bilingualism is seen as essential for economic prosperity and cultural exchange—or perhaps it’s a nod to how challenging Dutch can be. But like swimming, language learning demands you jump in…even if you’re afraid of sinking.
Splashing in the Kiddie Pool
While some kids went to gymnastics or scouting camps, I went to the Concordia Language Villages. It was a pretty stereotypical summer camp: we canoed, sang songs around the campfire, and did arts and crafts…except it was all in a foreign language. Instead of Jason Voorhees, the terror came from native-speakers turned counselors and near-total immersion. Named “Lake of the Woods” in the language of specialty, I spent one summer at Лесное Озеро and at least five at Lac du Bois. I continued studying French in high school, earning credit for the month I spent writing scripts for Plaisir d’Amour, the camp’s live-action soap opera.
I picked up Russian again in college when we had a visiting professor who inspired me to study theatre abroad. Funnily enough, I went to Moscow as a “participant ethnographer,” a fancy way of saying I observed how acting was taught by watching classes. I’ll never forget my visit to a state theatre school where I was called upon to demonstrate an emotional reaction. All eyes turned to me and I broke out in a sweat. The instinctual response to being caught in a situation I didn’t entirely understand was hailed as brilliant acting. The instructor claimed I was a гений (genius), though that was probably his way of apologizing for putting me on the spot. Like plunging into ice-cold water, it taught me the true meaning of “sink or swim.”
To excel in aquatic sports, you need lean muscle and lung capacity. You have to build neuromuscular coordination through repetition. If you stop hitting the pool regularly, you lose the precise balance of breath and movement—and when you jump back in, it can feel like you’re starting all over again. In much the same way, a second language is a “use it or lose it” type of skill. Despite the years spent studying and speaking French and Russian, today I can manage only a bit of small talk (and a few curse words). Without regular practice, the muscle memory quickly fades away.
Wearing Water Wings
Even though I’ve spent time in other countries, moving to the Netherlands was like diving into a bilingual ocean. Since they don’t want to let their English atrophy, most Nederlanders are happy to use the skills. Advertisements and entertainment routinely use words from both. “The two main aims of bilingual education—increasing students’ language proficiency and providing them with an international outlook—are certainly being fulfilled” (Nuffic 2020). As a hopeful long-term resident, learning to speak the country’s language is an essential part of integrating into the new society.
Spoken by less than 0.5% of the world’s population, learning Dutch is not only a badge of honor, it is also the key to making this foreign country feel like home. When we arrived, I was convinced that all the time I spent observing from the bleachers would translate to skill in the water. Word to the wise: an impressive Duolingo streak does not equate to fluency.
In real life, you can’t slow down speech with a click, and I have yet to find a button that offers hints. Studying verb conjugations and grammar rules won’t prepare you for when that “pee in your pants” nervous feeling hits. And no matter how many times the app quizzed me on it, no one has asked me about my relationship with the rhinoceros.
A few people have asked why I would bother learning a difficult language like Dutch when it’s easy to get by without it. Simple: so that I can make a grocery list without Google Translate. After mistaking RinseAid for dish soap and fabric softener for detergent, I learned you can’t trust the pictures on bottles.
But it’s more than that, enjoying life here means understanding more than the basics. “Breaking the language barrier is a decisive step to active participation in social and economic life and an essential tool for achieving full integration” (European Commission 2003). Though they are happy to speak English, the core of the culture is experienced in Dutch. And FYI, all the cool kids know it’s not peanut butter, it’s peanut cheese (pindakaas).
With its guttural g’s and quirky compound words, Nederlands is a hard language to master. “Non-native speakers encounter myriad challenges with Dutch—from complex grammar to everyday idiomatic usage—yet mastering these intricacies unlocks deeper cultural and social engagement” (UU Teaching and Learning Collection n.d.). Perhaps that explains why people politely switch to English when you get stuck trying to wrap your mouth around words like schoenendoosgevoel. That particular tongue-twister combines “shoes,” “box,” and “feeling” to perfectly describe being packed into a crowded train car.
In one of my favorite episodes of the brilliant (but short-lived) sitcom Happy Endings, the indomitable Penny Hartz “discovers” that she can speak fluent Italian…but only after a few drinks. By that rule of thumb, the only way I was ever going to speak Dutch was in fits and starts with a cartoon owl…
Testing the Waters
Learning a new language demands sacrifice—and the only way past that paralyzing moment when you blank on a word you’ve used a hundred times is to power through it. It’s also about compromises: you have to let go of the notion that every phrase will map neatly onto the words you’d normally use. Some Dutch expressions whittle things down (“Can I pay with a debit card?” becomes Mag ik pinnen?), while others pile them on (“I agree” becomes Ik ben het ermee eens). Try to shoehorn English phrasing into Dutch structure and you’ll get stuck faster than a frog in a pool drain.
A few weeks ago, I ventured into a bookstore in search of Anaïs Nin’s diaries (no, I haven’t forgotten you,
). The memoir and biography section was at the back, in the narrow hallway leading to the employee bathroom. Crouched against the wall, I scanned every spine on the shelves twice before realizing I needed to ask for help.Accustomed to tourists, salespeople seem to enjoy throwing down the gauntlet by speaking in rapid-fire Dutch, and parsing a torrent of unfamiliar words is like drinking from the proverbial fire hose. When your eyes glaze over, they reflexively slip into English—thwarting your ability to practice unless you are insistent and unashamed.
In the bookstore, the clerk seemed to relish watching me flush before asking in disdainful Engels if there were something he could do to help. Finding myself in the middle of the water, I faced the choice between clinging to my life-preserver or treading water. The condescending look vanished from his face when I admitted, “My Dutch is still bad, but I must try,” (Mijn Nederlands is nog steeds slecht, maar ik moet proberen). His encouraging smile reminded me that learning to swim doesn’t mean busting out an Olympic record-breaking backstroke on day one.
In short order, we were both surprised when the computer revealed Ms. Nin’s diaries were shelved among the novels…
You grow confident being able to express yourself in your native tongue, so it doesn’t feel comfortable to struggle with basic exchanges in a second. It’s easy to get down on yourself, but it’s important not to get so focused on your backstroke that you forget to tuck for the turn. Like that child who didn’t want to fumble in the water, it hit me like a tidal wave to realize that I was the biggest barrier to my speaking the language. Instead of continuing to fall back on English, I realized I could stop overcomplicating things and let myself make mistakes. Rather than getting hung up on the words I don’t know, why not try using the ones that I do?
After William repotted our (thriving) houseplants, we needed a larger plastic disc to go under the new pot. The ones I saw earlier in the spring were long gone from the shelves of Action—imagine a chaotic K-Mart/Dollar Tree hybrid that’s never the same twice. After three laps around the store, I took a deep breath and went across the street to the florist.
Staring with the same admission of speaking limited Dutch, I asked for “something to go under the houseplant as protection against water” (iets voor onder de huisplant als bescherming tegen het water) and soon learned the word is bloempotonderzetter. That’s a compound word made from “flower + pot + under + coaster.” I knew three of those four little words, but had convinced myself there was some hidden depth I couldn’t fathom.
Leaving the Shallow End
For practice, William and I tried watching a few Dutch movies on Disney+. By the way, that’s not the same as listening to your favorites dubbed in another language. When we did that, we focused on how they weren’t saying all the exact same words. From our queue, I highly recommend Jackie & Oopjen where the famed painting comes to life in modern Amsterdam.
I enjoyed Dolfje Weerwolfje where a boy turns into a werewolf on his seventh birthday, but you can skip Meester Kikker (a schoolteacher who turns into a frog). Obviously made for younger audiences, the language was fairly accessible, but we still needed to read the subtitles.
Emboldened, we tried the socio-political drama/maritime epic Michiel de Ruyter which featured a marble-mouthed leading man and no ondertitels—something my Dutch friend Ad said would be too much even for him. Imagine trying to learn English by listening to Sylvester Stallone…
Trying to “get serious,” I ditched Duolingo in favor of Babbel—another solid tip from
. It at least covers grammar rules, though you have to hunt for those modules! According to that app, I’ve reached at least A2, so why did I feel adrift anytime spoke to me at a normal pace. Why am I so scared of getting splashed?One day I passed an advertisement for someone who teaches Dutch to expats out of her home. I doubled back and took a picture, filling out the inquiry form and beginning a series of one-on-one conversation lessons. Discussing reading assignments and my daily life with her are like swimming laps, and I am slowly but surely building my confidence…and lung capacity.
When she asked what I thought of King Willem-Alexander, I managed to say, “I walk to the king’s little house almost every day,” (Bijna elke dag loop ik naar het huisje van de koning). Bonus points for a bit of Dutch humor: it’s funny to use the diminutive of house to describe a royal palace. She also helped clarify a few things Duolingo got very wrong. Yes, opgewonden does indeed mean “excited,” but it is used almost exclusively to describe sexual arousal…which was not how I felt arriving in her classroom.
At the end of my undergraduate semester, the aforementioned visiting Russian professor and his wife hosted a celebratory dinner. After partaking in vodka and pickled vegetables in the living room, Galina declared it was time to adjourn to the table for “the intercourse.” The room fell silent, and she could tell she’d made a mistake. Instead of freezing or running away in tears, she laughed.
Over the “main course,” she explained that speaking English often feels like mimicking sounds rather than picking words—and sometimes they’re simply not the right ones. She amusedly recounted another incident involving a pineapple and conflating “masterpiece” with “piece of shit” in front of a group of stuffy academics.
Not long after I began my private lessons, a man stopped me on the street with a question I couldn’t decipher. My knee-jerk reaction was to retreat, but swimming the butterfly stroke only gets easier with practice. After asking him to speak more slowly, I was thrilled to catch his meaning on the second try. He wanted directions to Den Haag Centraal, and I knew the way…and the words! Haltingly, I pointed out the white stadhuis and told him the train station was about a half-kilometer ahead on the right. When he praised my Dutch as “outstanding,” it felt like I’d earned perfect tens from a panel of judges. Add the double victory of using metric rather than Imperial units and I was practically opgewonden.
When you’re pitched into the drink, the instinctual fear of drowning can be overwhelming. But we all know Jack would have survived if he’d climbed onto that door alongside Rose. As I fight the panic that I might not know what to say, I remind myself of Galina’s laughter. Sure, I might confuse “to sell” and “to buy” (verkopen and aankopen) a bajillion more times, but is that as bad as not trying at all?
With each new word, I appreciate more of what this rich language has to offer. Instead of taking a “cat nap,” the Dutch “snap a little owl” (een uiltje knappen). I gave up looking for psyllium husks after discovering stoelgang kruiden—a literal stringing together of “chair,” “going,” and “spices.”
Just a few hours with a native Dutch speaker in a safe space opened up a whole new world for me. I no longer run as much mental double-time; the sounds are becoming familiar enough to catch. Suddenly, I can eavesdrop again—making me wonder why the verkoopsters (saleswomen…don’t get me started on gendered nouns) at Kruidvat believed their conversation about Korean barbecue warranted blocking the stoelgang kruiden.
Slowly letting go of the fear of choking, each slip of the tongue is proof that real integration lies beyond language apps and flashcards. I’m now using my translation app in reverse: typing what I think I want to say in Dutch, tweaking it until the English matches my intent, and leaping off the springboard.
Nederlanders are a friendly, talkative people who welcome conversation…but you have to be willing to talk to them in order to have one. Like swimming, mastering a new language isn’t about instant perfection but rather the unwavering determination to keep paddling forward.
Kom erin—het water is heerlijk!1
Bibliography
European Commission (2003) Report on Integration of Third-Country Nationals in the European Union, COM(2003) 449 final. Available at: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=celex%3A52003DC0449 (Accessed: 25 June 2025).
Nuffic (2020) Bilingual Education in Dutch Schools: A Success Story. Available at: https://www.nuffic.nl/sites/default/files/2020-08/bilingual-education-in-dutch-schools-a-success-story.pdf (Accessed: 25 June 2025).
UU Teaching and Learning Collection (n.d.) The Challenges of Dutch as a Second Language. Available at: https://teaching-and-learning-collection.sites.uu.nl/project/the-challenges-of-dutch-as-second-language/ (Accessed: 20 June 2025).
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“Come on in—the water’s fine!”
Keep going, Gillian!
I was in your shoes years ago, struggling with Dutch. I never really learned it properly, and looking back, that was a mistake. Integration and truly understanding a culture begin with the language. It’s also a form of respect toward the locals, and any meaningful relationship should be built on that foundation.
Keep us posted on your progress!
Tot ziens!
I have to concur that being praised by a local for your language is far better than any streak achievements or otherwise on Babbel, duolingo, etc. The reverse Google translate trick is a good one! I'll have to give it a try. I've also heard of people learning with chat GPT, but I have yet to give that a go. Sounds like you're doing great, keep it up!