I love Duolingo! I'm currently learning Dutch. It is really helpful for learning to read/write a language, but I haven't had much luck with any of the voice stuff. I find reading the news or Wikipedia articles (simple ones) in Dutch helps a lot. Just gotta find some nearby Dutch folks when I've got a bit more confidence. Also, I have a lot of bilingual friends, so I've started picking up a bit of French. I think my biggest barrier is my pride. I don't like to mess up in front of people.
As an english speaker (I'm assuming) do you feel Dutch is easy or hard? I'm interested in learning it in the future. If you live in Europe, dutch people should be easy enough to find I think. Wikipedia articles do indeed help. And what you feel is very common, I believe. But you can never get good at talking to people if you practice and mess up ;3
I find it pretty easy. Of course the syntax is different and some of it is even simpler than English (for example, "a" and "an" are simply "een"). Of course, like any language, you do need to work at it. Give it a shot on Duolingo and see if it interests you! I am from Canada! Though I am hoping to do an exchange in the Netherlands, which is what inspired me in the first place. :) I know, I know! Just gotta find people who won't get annoyed with me... Thank you for the encouragement though!
He, I'd like to do Dutch but it's kinda far on my list (Esperanto - German - Spanish- Norwegian - French - Dutch) so in the far future...