The story
behind
Leesje.

I’m Nick, I’m 28, and I started learning Dutch four years ago. One of the first challenges was finding the right resources. I tried different apps, but I didn’t feel I was making progress with them.

That was when I started thinking about building my own — something focused on practice and learning to use the language.

When I read or watch a video in Dutch, unfamiliar words keep pulling me away from it. I look up a translation, write it on a piece of paper or somewhere else, and then forget it. My notes end up scattered around, and I never come back to practise the words.

In the end, a word becomes just another entry in my browser history. I wanted those words to stay with me, so I could return to them and practise. That’s the idea behind Leesje, and where our slogan comes from.

Someone who wants to understand and remember the words they learn. They might already feel confident in Dutch, or they might know ten words. I’m building Leesje to help people grow their vocabulary at different levels.

I want practice to go beyond memorising a translation. Understanding how words work in a sentence, including the grammar around them, matters to me too.

Right now, there are exercises for de/het, plurals, past tense, filling in the gaps, and word order. They give you different ways to practise vocabulary and grammar.

• de / hetArticles
• PluralsWord forms
• Past tenseVerbs
• Fill the gapWords in context
• Word orderSentences

But this is only the beginning. I want to keep developing Leesje and add more ways to practise.

Reading is at the heart of how you learn with the app. So I started with the Dutch word lezen — “to read” — and explored lots of variations around it. Eventually, those variations led me to Leesje.