What can I try on this website right now?

You can try a free A0 or A1 story generated live with tap-to-translate words on this page. You can also join the Reading List to get 3 free sample stories as a PDF, all without creating an account.

Which levels will be available when Educator Studio launches?

At launch, Educator Studio will cover every level from A0 to B2. You will be able to turn specific tenses on or off and pick any topic so your readings stay aligned with your lessons.

Do my students need an account to read shared stories?

No, your students can open any shared story link directly in their browser without creating an account. They are invited, but never required, to set up a free account if they wish to save their words and stories.

How can I share texts with my students at launch?

At launch, you can create share links for any story you generate and send them to your students, with no limit on how many share links you can make. You can also print reading sheets as PDFs complete with line-by-line translations and a glossary.

How does audio pronunciation work for students?

At launch, students can tap a word in a shared text to hear it pronounced in a standard computer voice. If you get the Premium Audio add-on, story narration with distinct voices for dialogue speakers becomes available, alongside natural-sounding voices and MP3 audio exports.

How accurate are the texts generated by AI?

The stories are written by AI and automatically checked against the grammar and vocabulary rules of the selected level. Because the check is not done by a human editor, an occasional slip can get through, so you should review each text before sharing it with your class.

Why is it important to introduce Dutch nouns with their articles?

Whether a Dutch noun takes de or het is not marked on the word itself and must be learned individually, though diminutives always take het. Introducing every noun with its article from the beginning helps students learn the gender alongside the noun.

Dutch Graded Readers for Tutors and Teachers

Generate reading passages with tap-to-translate support for your students.

Teaching Dutch to English speakers requires engaging reading practice that fits what you have covered in class. With Stichos, you can try an A0 or A1 story live on this page to see how students tap words for translations. Use these graded passages to help your learners build reading confidence from day one.

Michiel in de bioscoop

Het is zaterdagavond in de stad.

It is Saturday evening in the city.

Michiel wandelt vrolijk door het centrum.

Michiel walks cheerfully through the city center.

Hij gaat vandaag naar de bioscoop.

He is going to the cinema today.

De bioscoop is groot en mooi.

The cinema is big and beautiful.

Er hangen veel gekleurde lampen.

There are many colorful lights hanging.

Michiel loopt naar de kassa.

Michiel walks to the checkout counter.

Hij koopt snel een kaartje.

He buys a ticket quickly.

Daarnaast ruikt hij lekkere popcorn.

Besides that, he smells tasty popcorn.

Hij koopt een zak zoete popcorn.

He buys a bag of sweet popcorn.

De popcorn is nog lekker warm.

The popcorn is still nice and warm.

Michiel loopt nu naar de zaal.

Michiel now walks to the hall.

In de zaal is het donker.

It is dark inside the hall.

Michiel zoekt zijn stoel.

Michiel looks for his seat.

Hij stapt op een doosje.

He steps on a small box.

Och, hij schrikt een beetje!

Oh, he startles a little bit!

Het is een oud doosje.

It is an old small box.

Gelukkig valt de popcorn niet.

Fortunately, the popcorn does not fall.

Michiel lacht om zijn foutje.

Michiel laughs at his little mistake.

Hij vindt zijn nummer en stoel.

He finds his number and seat.

Michiel gaat rustig zitten.

Michiel sits down quietly.

De stoel zit erg fijn.

The seat is very comfortable.

Het grote scherm gaat aan.

The large screen turns on.

Michiel eet de lekkere popcorn.

Michiel eats the tasty popcorn.

Hij kijkt naar de film.

He watches the movie.

De film is erg leuk.

The movie is very fun.

Facts About the Dutch Language

Speakers

About 25 million native speakers and about 30 million speakers in total (2021), mainly in the Netherlands, Belgium and Suriname, according to Wikipedia's Dutch language article.¹

Did you know?

Dutch spelling is set jointly across borders: the Dutch Language Union (Nederlandse Taalunie), founded by treaty between the Netherlands and Belgium in 1980 and joined by Suriname as an associate member in 2004, publishes the official word list known as the Groene Boekje.²

The main challenge

Word order: the finite verb comes second in main clauses but verbs go to the end of subordinate clauses, as in dat hij zijn moeder wilde gaan helpen ("that he wanted to go help his mother").³

CEFR exams

Where students struggle

Whether a noun takes de or het isn't marked on the noun and has to be learned word by word. One reliable rule: every diminutive is neuter, so it takes het (het meisje).³

Teaching notes

Introduce every noun together with its article (het huis, de tafel) from day one, since the gender has to be learned for each noun.³

Sources

About the Dutch language

Language family	Indo-European → Germanic → West Germanic → Low Franconian¹
Speakers	About 25 million native speakers and about 5 million second-language speakers (2021), mainly in the Netherlands, Belgium and Suriname.¹
Primary script	Latin alphabet¹
Word order & typology	Verb-second (V2) in main clauses and verb-final in subordinate clauses, where the order is SOV. Nouns take the article de or het.²
Official status	Official in the Netherlands, Belgium and Suriname, and in Aruba, Curaçao, Sint Maarten and the Caribbean Netherlands. Also an official language of the European Union, the Benelux and the Caribbean Community. The Dutch Language Union (Nederlandse Taalunie), set up by the Netherlands and Belgium in 1980, coordinates spelling and language policy.¹^,3^,4

Dutch reading proficiency benchmarks (CEFR)

Stichos level	Approximate framework equivalent	Reader profile
A0	Pre-A1	Early Beginner
A1	CEFR A1	Beginner
A2	CEFR A2	Elementary
B1	CEFR B1	Intermediate
B2	CEFR B2	Upper Intermediate

Stichos levels are modelled on the CEFR, with A0 roughly the Pre-A1 stage. The Dutch state exam (Staatsexamen Nt2: Programma I at B1, Programma II at B2) and the CNaVT (A2 to C1) report their levels against the same framework; this column does not map to individual exams. They are a guide to reading difficulty, not an official CEFR rating.

Reference corpora

Dutch frequency research includes large subtitle-based and spoken sources.¹

SUBTLEX-NL: Keuleers, Brysbaert and New (2010) built Dutch word frequencies from film and television subtitles. In a lexical decision study of 14,000 words, the subtitle counts explained up to 10% more variance than the older CELEX norms, which rest mostly on edited text.¹
Corpus Gesproken Nederlands: The Spoken Dutch Corpus holds about 900 hours (nearly 9 million words) of contemporary speech from the Netherlands and Flanders. It is owned by the Taalunie.²
Register: Stichos writes standard Dutch following the Woordenlijst Nederlandse Taal and avoids dialect, archaic words and Flemish-specific vocabulary. A text uses informal je/jij or formal u, never both.

Readability design principles

Dutch has its own readability measures, from an adaptation of the Flesch formula to a recent research-based tool.¹

Flesch–Douma: W. H. Douma adapted Flesch’s Reading Ease formula to Dutch, keeping its inputs (syllables per word and words per sentence) but lowering both weights.²
LiNT: The Leesbaarheidsinstrument voor Nederlandse Teksten, developed mainly at Utrecht University under Henk Pander Maat and commissioned by the Dutch Interior Ministry and the Taalunie, rates texts on four levels from word frequency, content-word density, concrete nouns and dependency length. It was calibrated on comprehension tests of 120 texts.¹
Stichos: Stichos sets difficulty with level-by-level grammar rules and sentence-length limits rather than a single readability score.

Script & grammar scaffolding

Tenses: A0 and A1 stay in the present (onvoltooid tegenwoordige tijd). A2 adds the present perfect (voltooid tegenwoordige tijd) with hebben or zijn, the imperative, and the simple past (onvoltooid verleden tijd) of a few high-frequency verbs such as zijn, hebben and the modals. B1 opens the full simple past, the future with zullen or gaan and the present passive with worden; B2 adds the past perfect and the conditional with zou/zouden.
Word order: A0 uses single main clauses in subject-verb-object order, inverting only for yes/no questions. A1 allows inversion after a time or place phrase (Vandaag drinkt hij koffie). Verb-final subordinate clauses arrive at A2, and relative clauses with die/dat and om … te infinitives at B1.
Conjunctions: A0 has none. Stichos unlocks en, maar and want first, which keep main-clause order, before omdat, als and hoewel, which send the verb to the end.
Agreement: Articles follow the noun’s gender (de or het), and adjectives take -e except before an indefinite neuter singular noun: een groot huis but het grote huis.

Related academic & framework resources

Staatsexamen Nt2: The national Dutch-as-a-second-language exam for adults, with Programma I at B1 and Programma II at B2.
CNaVT exams: The Taalunie’s Certificate of Dutch as a Foreign Language: five exams from A2 to C1 in social, professional and educational domains.
SUBTLEX-NL (Behavior Research Methods, 2010): The paper by Emmanuel Keuleers, Marc Brysbaert and Boris New.
LiNT (Leesbaarheidsinstrument voor Nederlandse Teksten): An overview of the Utrecht readability tool, its four difficulty levels and the research behind it.
Taalmaterialen (Dutch Language Institute): The Dutch Language Institute’s catalogue of language resources, including the Spoken Dutch Corpus.
Leesbaarheid (Dutch Wikipedia): An overview of Dutch readability measures, including the Flesch–Douma formula.

Frequently Asked Questions

What can I try on this website right now?: You can try a free A0 or A1 story generated live with tap-to-translate words on this page. You can also join the Reading List to get 3 free sample stories as a PDF, all without creating an account.
Which levels will be available when Educator Studio launches?: At launch, Educator Studio will cover every level from A0 to B2. You will be able to turn specific tenses on or off and pick any topic so your readings stay aligned with your lessons.
Do my students need an account to read shared stories?: No, your students can open any shared story link directly in their browser without creating an account. They are invited, but never required, to set up a free account if they wish to save their words and stories.
How can I share texts with my students at launch?: At launch, you can create share links for any story you generate and send them to your students, with no limit on how many share links you can make. You can also print reading sheets as PDFs complete with line-by-line translations and a glossary.
How does audio pronunciation work for students?: At launch, students can tap a word in a shared text to hear it pronounced in a standard computer voice. If you get the Premium Audio add-on, story narration with distinct voices for dialogue speakers becomes available, alongside natural-sounding voices and MP3 audio exports.
How accurate are the texts generated by AI?: The stories are written by AI and automatically checked against the grammar and vocabulary rules of the selected level. Because the check is not done by a human editor, an occasional slip can get through, so you should review each text before sharing it with your class.
Why is it important to introduce Dutch nouns with their articles?: Whether a Dutch noun takes de or het is not marked on the word itself and must be learned individually, though diminutives always take het. Introducing every noun with its article from the beginning helps students learn the gender alongside the noun.

Learning Dutch yourself? Try the learner reader →

Free Language Reading Samples for Tutors · Stichos