I moved to the Netherlands thinking I’d “pick up Dutch naturally.” Reality was different. In the beginning, everything worked in English. The supermarket. The municipality. The doctor’s office. Work. Friends. Even the apps on my phone. It felt convenient until I realized that convenience was quietly becoming a trap. When your whole environment politely rescues you in English, Dutch stays at a distance. You live in the Netherlands, but you don’t fully arrive. Dutch also has its own kind of difficulty. It’s not just vocabulary. It’s the sounds your mouth isn’t used to making. It’s the “I understand when I read it, but I freeze when I hear it” feeling. It’s the confidence hit when you try a sentence and the other person switches to English before you finish. After a while, your brain starts to associate Dutch with small daily losses. And then there’s age. When you’re 35+, you don’t have the same patience you had at school. You have work deadlines, family responsibilities, and a hundred things competing for your attention. Motivation isn’t automatic anymore. You need a system. Something that makes progress feel possible on busy days. Something that rewards consistency, not perfection. That’s why I built StroopTaal. Not as “yet another language app,” but as the app I wished existed: a simple, structured way to build Dutch into your life even when life keeps pushing you back into English. Short daily tasks. Clear progress. Friendly nudges. A design that doesn’t shame you for missing a day, but makes it easy to return. And a tone that understands what it’s like to be an expat: motivated in theory, exhausted in practice. StroopTaal is for the moment you decide: “I don’t want to live here through subtitles anymore.” If you’re in the Netherlands and you’ve ever said: • “Everyone speaks English anyway…” • “I’m too old to learn a new language…” • “I started Dutch before but couldn’t keep going…” …then this app was built for you. StroopTaal helps you show up every day tiny steps, real momentum until Dutch stops being something you avoid and becomes something you own.

StroopTaal

Learn Dutch & Inburgering

Learn Dutch & Inburgering