Bûter, brea en griene tsiis; wa't dat net sizze kin, is gjin oprjochte Fries. Butter, bread and green cheese; whoever can't say that is no true Frisian. Legend has it the rhyme was once used to unmask outsiders, and an English speaker can read the first half without a dictionary. That's the hook of Frisian, a language from the north of the Netherlands that is among the closest relatives English has.
To learn Frisian, start from that resemblance, but don't lean on it too hard. Learn the spelling, which uses vowel combinations English doesn't, then the core verbs and the word order, which work much as they do in Dutch, and build vocabulary a little every day. Fifteen to twenty minutes a day for a month covers greetings, introductions and simple sentences about your life. If you live in Fryslân, you'll be picking up some Dutch along the way, because everyone around you speaks both.
Where Frisian is spoken
The Frisian most people mean, and the one Qlango teaches, is West Frisian, Frysk, spoken in the Dutch province of Fryslân (Friesland in Dutch). Roughly 400,000 to half a million people speak it, and it is the Netherlands' second official language, used alongside Dutch in the province's government, schools and courts. Many signs in the province are bilingual: the capital, Leeuwarden, is Ljouwert in Frisian. It's the province of the Elfstedentocht, the 200-kilometer skating race through eleven historic cities, last held in 1997 and still waiting for a hard enough winter.
Two smaller Frisian languages survive in Germany: North Frisian, on the North Sea coast and islands of Schleswig-Holstein, and Saterland Frisian in Lower Saxony. Both are small, with speakers in the thousands, and neither is easy for a West Frisian speaker to follow.
Why Frisian looks like English
Frisian and English both come from the North Sea branch of West Germanic, and they went through some of the same sound changes that Dutch and German didn't. The clearest is in the first four rows below: where Dutch and German kept a hard k or g, English and Frisian softened it. The last three rows simply show how close the everyday words are.
| English | Frisian | Dutch | German |
|---|---|---|---|
| cheese | tsiis | kaas | Käse |
| church | tsjerke | kerk | Kirche |
| day | dei | dag | Tag |
| way | wei | weg | Weg |
| butter | bûter | boter | Butter |
| bread | brea | brood | Brot |
| green | grien | groen | grün |
Frisian also kept something English lost. Its informal word for "you", do, is related to the old English "thou". The polite form is jo.
What's hard about learning Frisian
The resemblance to English runs out sooner than people hope, because Frisian grammar is closer to Dutch. The verb comes second in a main clause and moves to the end of a subordinate one, and there are two words for "the", de and it, for common and neuter nouns. Frisian also has two infinitive endings, -e and -en, used in different constructions, and it takes a while before choosing between them feels natural.
The spelling holds most of the trouble. Frisian writes a lot of vowel combinations, ea, ie, oe, oa and ue among them, plus circumflexes on â, ê, ô and û, and some vowels change in plurals and compounds in a way linguists call breaking. There are regional varieties too, Klaaifrysk on the clay lands and Wâldfrysk in the wooded east, with differences you'll hear far more often than you'll see them written.
Then there's Dutch. Every Frisian speaker also speaks Dutch, modern Frisian has borrowed heavily from it, and conversations with outsiders tend to slide into Dutch out of courtesy. You'll need to ask people to carry on in Frisian.
First words, in Frisian and Dutch
Since you'll hear both languages in Fryslân, here they are side by side:
| Frisian | Dutch | English |
|---|---|---|
| Goeie | Hallo | hello |
| Goeiemoarn | Goedemorgen | good morning |
| Hoe giet it? | Hoe gaat het? | how's it going? |
| Ik hjit Sjoerd | Ik heet Sjoerd | my name is Sjoerd |
| Tankewol | Dank je wel | thank you |
| Ja, nee | Ja, nee | yes, no |
| Moai | Mooi | nice, beautiful |
| Oant sjen | Tot ziens | goodbye |
Moai is worth special attention: Frisians use it for almost anything they approve of.
Most Frisian material is written in Dutch
Frisian has a few hundred thousand speakers, all of whom also speak Dutch, so publishers have little commercial reason to produce courses, and language schools outside Fryslân almost never offer it. Most of the material that does exist is written for Dutch speakers, which is fine if your Dutch is good and no help if it isn't. For an English speaker, the first obstacle often isn't Frisian at all. It's the Dutch the textbook explains it in.
A first month with Frisian
In week one, learn the spelling, what ea, oa, ie and the circumflexes stand for, and the greetings above. In week two, build sentences with bin and haw (am, have), hjitte (to be called) and wenje (to live): Ik wenje yn Ljouwert, I live in Leeuwarden. In week three, practice word order in short sentences with "because" and "that", where the verb moves to the end. In week four, write five sentences a day and listen to Omrop Fryslân, the regional broadcaster, for ten minutes at a time, even if all you catch at first is the place names.
Learn Frisian: quick answers
Is Frisian just a Dutch dialect?
No. It's a separate language with its own history, spelling and literature, and it has official status in the Netherlands. A Dutch speaker who hasn't learned Frisian will struggle to follow a conversation in it.
Do I need Dutch first?
No, but it helps, especially if you plan to live in Fryslân, where you'll use both every day. Our guide to learning Dutch covers the other half.
Is it easy for English speakers?
Easier than the spelling suggests. Vocabulary is the easy part, thanks to all the cognates, while word order and vowels take longer. Like the languages on our list of the easiest languages to learn, Frisian gives English speakers a head start, not a free pass.
How Qlango helps you learn Frisian
Qlango teaches West Frisian at A1 and A2, from Goeie to simple everyday conversations about your family, your job, shopping and the town you live in. Lessons are short, and flashcards with spaced repetition bring each word back just before you'd forget it. Building sentences gets the verb into second place, and later to the end, without you having to think about rules. Writing answers yourself is how the circumflexes and the double vowels settle in. When you add the course, you choose the language you learn through, your native language or one you want to strengthen, and you can start free. Premium adds offline lessons and an AI teacher for questions such as when an infinitive takes -e and when it takes -en. The table of languages lists every course and level.
The old rhyme makes a fair exam for the end of week four: say bûter, brea en griene tsiis aloud and see whether anyone takes you for a local. Until then, Qlango's A1 course takes care of the vowels, one short lesson at a time.
