History:
The Dutch language is considered to have originated in about AD 700 from the various Germanic dialects spoken in the Netherlands region, mostly of (Low) Frankian origin. A process of standardization started in the Middle Ages. Dutch is part of the Germanic branch of the Indo-European language family. It is, therefore, closely related to English, German and the Scandinavian languages. Dutch is spoken as a mother tongue by about 23 million people in the Netherlands, parts of Belgium and in the former Dutch colonies.
Grammar rules, similarities, and differences between English and Dutch languages:
• Dutch uses the same Latin alphabet as English.
• The Dutch and English sounds systems are similar, so Dutch learners tend to not have significant problems perceiving or producing oral English. Mispronunciation of vowel sounds may occur, however, in minimal pairs such as sit-set / set-sat / caught-coat. Many English words end with voiced consonants, for example /b/ (rub) or /d/ (bird). This feature does not exist in Dutch, so such words may be pronounced rup or birt. The English consonant sound /w/ is also problematic for some Dutch learners, leading them to say vine instead of wine.
• Verb/Tense: The Dutch verb system has similar tenses to English and is similarly uninflected. There are differences, however, that may result in negative transfer. For example, Dutch does not use the auxiliary do in questions or negatives, so beginners may produce sentences such as: Where you come from? / I drink not coffee.
• A more significant problem is the lack of correspondence between the tenses in which certain meanings are expressed in Dutch and the tenses in which those meanings are expressed in English. For example, English requires the past simple where Dutch uses the present perfect or the present perfect where Dutch uses the present simple. Mistakes such as the following are common: I