Dutch website recommendations for reading practice?

October 17, 2014 11:59 AM

I'm learning Dutch and as my language skills get better I'm looking for websites to visit to get more engaging reading practice than my textbook can offer. (And something more interesting than strict news sites.)

I love Metafilter, and would be thrilled to find a site like it that is diverse in subject matter and has intelligent comments, because I find reading comments to be helpful. I also enjoy BoingBoing, and I follow a few blogs on cooking and cycling and the NY Times "Well" blogs, and my husband, who is also studying the language, is a programmer and likes technical sites. So those are our interests. Short-form webcomics would also be nice.

posted by antinomia to Education (11 answers total)

Best answer: You may very well enjoy 'De Correspondent'. It's not free, but high-quality. It offers backgrounds and opinions on diverse subjects.
posted by Too-Ticky at 12:12 PM on October 17, 2014

Wikipedia Nederlands?
posted by H21 at 12:22 PM on October 17, 2014

You could fall down this rabbit hole.

I tend to read nu.nl daily, or so.
posted by humboldt32 at 2:48 PM on October 17, 2014

Depending on your sense of irony, Taalvoutjes might be interesting. Bonus: Tests how good your Dutch is by seeing if you recognize the errors.
posted by dhens at 5:30 PM on October 17, 2014

If you really want to learn Dutch fast you need to go to "The Nuns from Vught"
posted by Mac-Expert at 6:06 PM on October 17, 2014

Check out Onze Taal ('our language'). It's the website of a society for Dutch language afficionados, the Taaladvies section has advice on language issues that native speakers may get wrong, and there's also a blog and a dead-tree magazine that you can subscribe to. They cover a wide range of subjects (one recent issue of the dead-tree publication covered English as it is spoken by native Dutch speakers) in a very accessible way.
posted by rjs at 11:00 PM on October 17, 2014

For some lighter reading, try Bijzinnen. The author is a scientist who works in the area of cyber security and a novelist, it hasn't been updated lately but the archives are pretty extensive.
posted by rjs at 11:04 PM on October 17, 2014 [1 favorite]

There's a very active Dutch thread on Something Awful.
posted by neushoorn at 1:52 AM on October 18, 2014

Response by poster: Thanks for the recommendations, everyone. De Correspondent is particularly interesting -- it's a bit above my abilities, but the topics are interesting enough to really motivate me to try, so that's a big positive.

Mac-Expert, have you taken classes at The Nuns from Vught? Looks promising, but pricey.
posted by antinomia at 11:32 AM on October 18, 2014

For other Nederlands / Vlaams language learners who are interested in current events, De Wereld Morgen's "Light" section uses fairly simple grammar and vocabulary. There are frequently links to the original articles if you want more challenge.
posted by autopilot at 11:40 AM on October 18, 2014

Best answer: You may also like De Speld for some comic relief. It's similar to The Onion.
posted by Too-Ticky at 11:15 AM on October 20, 2014