Mariska van der Meij

Single Dutch B&B owners abroad hope one of their guests turns into a partner. It is hours of unscripted conversation at normal speed, and the plot pulls you along even when the words get away from you.

Farmers across the country look for a partner, filmed at home on the farm. You get real regional accents and the way people speak when nobody has written it down for them.

Ten home bakers compete for the title of best baker in the Netherlands, and everything on screen shows you what the words mean. The kitchen vocabulary comes back every episode, which is what makes it stick.

A Sinterklaas romantic comedy with a dozen Amsterdam storylines that cross over by the end. Half a crash course in the biggest holiday in the Dutch calendar, half an hour and a half of people talking to each other the way they really do.

Amsterdam in the late 1980s, where two brothers launch Europe's first erotic phone line and a psychology student takes a job answering it. Fast, slangy, adult, and a good ear workout once you can follow a scene.

Videoland's drama about Máxima Zorreguieta before she became queen of the Netherlands, from Buenos Aires and New York to the Dutch royal family. Much of the early story plays out abroad, so the Dutch arrives in stretches rather than all at once.

The film that grew out of the series about four women in het Gooi, the wealthy stretch of country outside Amsterdam. The Dutch is quick, catty and thick with slang, so save it for when you can already follow a conversation. The series itself is on Videoland.