What is a “spreekbeurt” in Dutch?

Kinderen vertellen over spreekangst in de klas

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A2 Dutch listening practice · Flemish Dutch · Curated for beginners

💡 Did you know?
spreekbeurt
noun · Dutch (Flemish)
“a class oral presentation, show-and-tell”

Flemish schoolkids talk about classroom nerves, and one names the scariest part: «Een spreekbeurt geven, dat vind ik het moeilijkste» (“giving an oral presentation, that’s what I find hardest”). A spreekbeurt (spreken “to speak” + beurt “turn”) is a talk you give standing in front of the class.

It’s a rite of passage in Dutch and Flemish schools, the show-and-tell where you present a topic, here, one child’s example is a tiger that “only eats meat.” Note the Belgian flavour of this clip: babbelen (“to chat”) and the idiom zich gedeisd houden (“to keep a low profile”) ring especially Flemish.

Vocabulary frequency

How common is the vocabulary in this A2 Dutch listening practice listening practice?

94.6%
of words are in the top 2,000 most common Dutch words
Based on this reel’s transcript, most of the vocabulary is high-frequency, everyday Dutch.

General Dutch frequency

90.8%
Top 1,000
94.6%
Top 2,000
97%
Top 5,000

Spoken Dutch frequency

93.8%
Top 1,000
98.3%
Top 2,000
100%
Top 5,000

Words above this video’s level

Quick glosses for vocabulary that goes beyond this video’s A2 level.

abonneren
1×
Rare / outside top 5,000
to subscribe
gedeisd
1×
Rare / outside top 5,000
spreekbeurt
4×
Rare / outside top 5,000
oral presentation
merci
1×
Rare / outside top 5,000
thanks (slang)
hou ik mij gedeisd
1×
keep quiet

Source: wordfreq 3.1.1 (general) · SUBTLEX-NL 2014 (spoken). Buckets approximate; exact ranks not stored.

★Where you’ll hear this
  • ▸In Dutch and Flemish (Belgian) classrooms.
  • ▸Alongside the Flemish-flavoured babbelen (“to chat”).
  • ▸In Belgian kids' and school content on VRT and Ketnet.
  • ▸In Dutch talk about spreekangst (fear of speaking up).

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