A meeting is the worst possible place to start speaking Dutch, and it is where almost everyone tries.
Think about what a meeting actually asks of you. You have to follow a conversation that keeps moving, decide within a few seconds whether your point is still relevant, build a sentence in a language you have mostly practised reading, and say it out loud in front of the people who decide what you are worth here.
In English you would not think twice. In Dutch, by the time the sentence is ready, the topic has moved on. So you let it go. And then you do that again next week. If the meeting is in English but everything around it is not, that is a slightly different problem.
What it quietly costs
Nobody in that room thinks you are less capable. They think you are quiet, and being read as quiet instead of as capable is exactly what professional Dutch is there to prevent. That is a smaller problem than not getting through the door at all, and it is the same mechanism.
But over months, quiet becomes a description. The person who does not speak in meetings is not the first person you think of for the visible project, or the lead role, or the thing that needs someone to explain it to a client. Not because anyone decided that, but because presence in a room is how people form an impression, and you are not fully in the room yet.
Language changes how people read your expertise, even when the expertise itself has not changed at all.
That is the part that makes this worth doing something about, and it is also why waiting until your Dutch is better is the most expensive option available. Every month you wait is another month of being read as quieter than you are.
Someone who was sitting in those meetings
“Did I really speak that long?”
That was Saurabh's reaction when I told him he had just spoken Dutch without stopping for seven minutes. He genuinely had not noticed.
Where he started will sound familiar: switching to English exactly when it mattered, overthinking every sentence, sentences that got long and lost their way, and conversations that left him tired. A few days after that seven minute moment, he spoke the first ten minutes of a meeting with his manager entirely in Dutch.
“My colleagues are more surprised than I am.”
Saurabh, A2 to B1
What changed was not his vocabulary. It was clear short sentences instead of long ones, staying on track while speaking, and answering rather than preparing to answer. His next goal is to lead his own performance review in Dutch, which is a very different sentence from the one he started with.
Four things that actually work in meetings
None of these require better Dutch than you have today.
- Speak in the first five minutes. The longer you wait, the higher the bar you set for your own first sentence. Say something small and early, even just agreeing with someone, and the rest of the meeting stops being a wall.
- Prepare one sentence, not a script. Decide before the meeting what your point is and how you will open it. One rehearsed sentence out loud unlocks the unrehearsed ones behind it.
- Make your sentences shorter than feels natural. Long sentences are where you lose the thread, and where listeners lose you. Short and clear reads as confident, not as simple.
- Ask, in Dutch, when you miss something. Kun je dat nog een keer zeggen? Kun je dat laatste stukje herhalen? Wat bedoel je precies met dat? These do not show that you understood less. They show someone who wants to get it right, which is a completely different impression.
And one thing that is not a technique: when a colleague switches to English to help you out, you are allowed to say you would rather continue in Dutch. They will. It is uncomfortable roughly twice. If the one doing the switching is usually you, start here instead.
If none of this is landing because the words simply do not arrive under pressure, that is a different problem and I wrote about it separately: why you understand Dutch but cannot speak it.
Where to practise this
Not in the meeting. The reason meetings are hard is that they are expensive, and you need somewhere a wrong sentence costs you nothing at all.
The free Spreekwafel app gives you ten minutes a day out loud, built around exactly these situations. Spreekwafel Circle gives you people: speaking with other professionals at your own level every week, a weekly assignment with feedback, and a monthly masterclass. The group starts on 1 October 2026.
Not sure which one fits, or whether either does? Ask me, and I will tell you honestly.
Questions people ask about this
How can I speak more in Dutch meetings?
Start earlier rather than better. The longer a meeting runs, the higher the bar you set for your own first sentence. Say something in the first few minutes, even something small, and the rest becomes far easier.
What do I say when I miss something in a Dutch meeting?
Ask, in Dutch. Kun je dat nog een keer zeggen? Kun je dat laatste stukje herhalen? Wat bedoel je precies met dat? These do not make you look like you understand less. They make you look like someone who wants to get it right.
My colleagues switch to English as soon as I speak Dutch. What now?
They are being kind, not critical. Say plainly that you would like to keep going in Dutch, and almost everyone will. The awkwardness is real and it lasts about two conversations.
Should I prepare what I want to say before a meeting?
Yes, but one sentence, not a script. Decide in advance on the single point you want to make and how you will open it. Once you have said one prepared sentence out loud, the unprepared ones follow much more easily.
Does my Dutch really affect how I am seen at work?
It can, and that is uncomfortable to say out loud. Language changes how people read your expertise, even when the expertise has not changed. That is exactly why speaking is worth practising deliberately, rather than waiting until it feels ready.
Written by Jacky van der Starre, who teaches professionals to speak the Dutch they already understand.