Is Stichos suitable for complete beginners with zero prior knowledge (A0)?

Yes. A0 is a primary focus, designed for readers with no prior knowledge. A1 then adds basic everyday vocabulary and simple connected clauses as your foundation grows.

Are Stichos levels the same as CEFR levels?

Not exactly. Stichos levels use the familiar CEFR names, from A0 to B2, and are modelled on the CEFR (the Common European Framework of Reference), so a Stichos B1 is meant to feel close to a B1 in your course book. They aren't an official CEFR rating, and different books and exams draw the lines in slightly different places. A0 is Stichos's own addition, just below the framework's first level.

Are the stories written by AI, and how accurate are they?

Yes. Stories are generated by AI and then checked by further automated steps against the grammar and vocabulary rules for your level. That catches most problems, but it isn't a human editor, so an occasional unnatural phrase or slip can get through. Treat Stichos as practice material, and check anything you're unsure of with a teacher or a reference.

Can I read stories with explanations in my native language?

Yes. Stichos allows you to pair any target language with any native support language. You can read a Croatian story with French glosses, or a German story with Spanish explanations.

How does word lookup work while reading?

Tap or click any word for its meaning in that sentence, explained in your own language. In the full version, you can save any word to your Vocab Bank for later review.

Is the preview free, and what happens to my email?

Yes. The preview is free and needs no account. If you join the Reading List, we use your email to send your 3 free sample stories (PDF, after you confirm your address) and to let you know when we fully open. Our Privacy Policy explains how we handle it.

Do stories include audio or narration?

Story narration isn't part of the preview. At launch, the Premium Audio add-on reads every story aloud in a natural-sounding AI voice, in 39 of our 40 languages (Esperanto doesn't have audio support yet).

Read Your First Dutch Story in Minutes

Explore a free beginner Dutch passage generated live with interactive translations.

Try a free A0 or A1 story in Dutch, generated live, with tap-to-translate words and line-by-line translations.

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.

Quick facts about Dutch

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

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 writing system does Dutch use?: Latin alphabet
Is Stichos suitable for complete beginners with zero prior knowledge (A0)?: Yes. A0 is a primary focus, designed for readers with no prior knowledge. A1 then adds basic everyday vocabulary and simple connected clauses as your foundation grows.
Are Stichos levels the same as CEFR levels?: Not exactly. Stichos levels use the familiar CEFR names, from A0 to B2, and are modelled on the CEFR (the Common European Framework of Reference), so a Stichos B1 is meant to feel close to a B1 in your course book. They aren't an official CEFR rating, and different books and exams draw the lines in slightly different places. A0 is Stichos's own addition, just below the framework's first level.
Are the stories written by AI, and how accurate are they?: Yes. Stories are generated by AI and then checked by further automated steps against the grammar and vocabulary rules for your level. That catches most problems, but it isn't a human editor, so an occasional unnatural phrase or slip can get through. Treat Stichos as practice material, and check anything you're unsure of with a teacher or a reference.
Can I read stories with explanations in my native language?: Yes. Stichos allows you to pair any target language with any native support language. You can read a Croatian story with French glosses, or a German story with Spanish explanations.
How does word lookup work while reading?: Tap or click any word for its meaning in that sentence, explained in your own language. In the full version, you can save any word to your Vocab Bank for later review.
Is the preview free, and what happens to my email?: Yes. The preview is free and needs no account. If you join the Reading List, we use your email to send your 3 free sample stories (PDF, after you confirm your address) and to let you know when we fully open. Our Privacy Policy explains how we handle it.
Do stories include audio or narration?: Story narration isn't part of the preview. At launch, the Premium Audio add-on reads every story aloud in a natural-sounding AI voice, in 39 of our 40 languages (Esperanto doesn't have audio support yet).

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