[mention]Explorer[/mention] wrote in another thread (viewtopic.php?t=3442-your-languages ): “Dutch: one of the most difficult languages”.
I must agree. It is mainly due to the two following reasons:
Most Dutch-natives speak also fluent English if not more languages so for a foreigner to strike a conversation in Dutch it means that he/she would have to have a good command of Dutch already, otherwise the conversation will fall back to English due to the law of gravity. For a beginner it is a huge barrier.
Another reason is the plethora of dialects in the Netherlands that are so different from the standard ABN that are unintelligible for a foreigner making their first steps in the language.
I would love to hear from native Dutch speakers how you deal with the dialects. Can you speak each of you in your dialect and will be understood everywhere in the country or do you need to switch to ABN when travelling to places like Friesland or Limburg?