Free Apps to Learn Dutch: What You Get Without Paying

Competitor statements come mainly from each app’s App Store listing, its own website and its public App Store reviews, read on 31 October 2026, and the third-party trackers, reviews and forum posts this page relies on are named where they are used and listed under Sources. PolyYapp’s facts come from its source code and live listing, read the same day.

What does “free” mean for a Dutch learning app?

Free Dutch apps follow one of five models, and the model decides whether the free version is enough. Some apps put nothing behind a paywall. Some fund the free tier with ads and ration it with energy or a timer. Some cap how much you can do in a day. Some give you a sample of a paid course. And one, Anki on iPhone, has no free app at all.

• Nothing to unlock: PolyYapp today, and desktop Anki and AnkiDroid.
• Ad-funded and rationed: Duolingo (an energy system) and Drops (a short timed session).
• A daily cap: Clozemaster, on sentences played.
• A sample: Memrise, with limited lessons, videos and conversations.
• Paid up front: AnkiMobile, Anki’s iPhone and iPad app.

A free trial belongs in none of these. Drops and Duolingo both advertise trials of their subscriptions; a trial is full access that ends, and a free tier does not end.

Which apps let you learn Dutch for free?

Only two of the six have a free path with nothing to unlock: PolyYapp on Apple devices and Anki outside iOS. Duolingo is the only one that gives away a complete Dutch course, grammar included, and the other three ration their free plans by sentences, minutes or lessons. The table gives each free tier’s business model and where it stops, with usage caps where the vendor publishes one and no prices.

What does PolyYapp give you without paying?

PolyYapp is free to download and use, with no in-app purchases and no ads today. No account is needed to start: PolyYapp creates an anonymous profile on first launch, and Sign in with Apple is optional. There is no lesson cap and no energy system. The two daily limits are anti-abuse caps: 10 new custom words, and 10 questions and 3 hints in the Guess-a-Word game. The privacy policy says the app may offer in-app purchases, so this is the model as of 31 October 2026, not a promise about later.

What the free app gives you is a Dutch vocabulary trainer. PolyYapp brings each word back on a spaced-repetition schedule and drills it with 5 exercise types, from about 3,900 curated Dutch words (as of October 2026), with text-to-speech audio in a Netherlands Dutch voice. It shows meanings in any of its 7 app languages, so a Spanish or Ukrainian speaker learns Dutch without going through English.

Being free does not make PolyYapp a full course. It has no grammar lessons, no speaking practice and no exam mode. New words are drawn at random from its list, with no levels or course path. PolyYapp needs an internet connection, and it runs on iPhone, iPad and Apple-silicon Macs, with no Android app.

What does Duolingo’s free tier give a Dutch learner?

Duolingo’s free tier gives a Dutch learner the whole course: its App Store listing says “Every course is free”, and the Dutch course is reachable without paying. Ads fund the free tier, and an energy system limits how much you can do in one sitting. Super Duolingo, an auto-renewing subscription, removes both. Users have reported the energy limit, the ads and subscription prompts as recurring complaints.

What the free tier gives a beginner is more than PolyYapp offers on one axis: a structured path with grammar, sentence-building and all four skills. The limit is depth. DuolingoData, a third-party course tracker, labels Duolingo’s Dutch course A2 against B2 for Spanish, French and German (snapshot July 2025), and lists it as taught from English only. There are no custom words. Pick Duolingo if you are a complete beginner who wants a guided, free, game-like path from zero, with streaks to keep you going.

What do you get from Anki without paying?

Without paying, Anki gives you everything except an iPhone or iPad app. Desktop Anki (Windows, macOS, Linux) and AnkiDroid cost nothing, AnkiWeb sync is free, and so are the community shared decks. Anki’s only paid app is AnkiMobile Flashcards for iPhone and iPad, a one-time purchase with no subscription and no ads; the developer says its sales fund both the desktop and mobile versions. Its listing even advises starting with the computer version before buying.

The free part costs time instead. Anki ships no Dutch content, so you choose a shared deck or build your own cards, and users have reported decks full of mistakes. Third parties also sell premium Dutch decks, which are not part of Anki. In return, free Anki studies fully offline, needs no account and gives total control over the schedule. Pick Anki if you are a disciplined, self-directed learner who wants offline study, Android or Linux, or one tool for everything you learn. The trade-off against PolyYapp is set out in PolyYapp vs Anki.

How much of Clozemaster is free?

Clozemaster’s free plan is a daily taster. Its own Dutch collection pages, read on 31 October 2026, say a free account plays up to 30 sentences a day while Pro is unlimited, and users on the Clozemaster community forum report that some older accounts are not capped. An account is required to play. Listening practice and offline downloads are Pro features, and Pro is a monthly or yearly subscription.

Within that cap, the free sentences are real Dutch in context, ordered by word frequency. Clozemaster also offers grammar collections on articles, prepositions and pronominal adverbs, but none of its pages read for this article says whether a free account can play them. Clozemaster describes itself as aimed at A2 to C1 and not meant for complete beginners. Pick it if you are already intermediate and want words in sentences at scale, on the web or Android as well as iOS.

What does Drops give you for free?

Drops gives a short, time-capped session of picture-based vocabulary games, with ads. The length of that session and how it resets (once a day, or after a wait of several hours) are reported differently across sources, FluentU’s review among them, so this page publishes the shape and no number. One App Store listing says extra time can be earned by watching ads or referring friends. Premium is a subscription that adds unlimited time, offline study and no ads, with a free trial.

Drops teaches single words through illustrations and tap-and-swipe games, without sentences or grammar, and no way to add your own words was found. Pick Drops if a few minutes of illustrated, game-like practice is what keeps you coming back, or if you want several languages in one app.

What do you get from Memrise without paying?

Memrise’s free plan, per its App Store listing, includes limited vocabulary lessons, limited videos and conversations, and ads. The same listing says a subscription is required to access all learning features, and Memrise Pro is auto-renewing. An account appears to be required, and users have reported heavy paywalling, with most lessons locked behind Pro.

Memrise has native-speaker video and AI conversation partners for speaking practice, neither of which PolyYapp has. Memrise is the better pick if hearing real Dutch speakers and practising out loud matters more to you than drilling a large vocabulary, even if the free plan only lets you sample it.

Do free Dutch learning apps need an account?

Two of the six free paths need no account at all. PolyYapp creates an anonymous profile on first launch; Sign in with Apple is optional and needed only to create custom words. Anki needs no account either, and an AnkiWeb account is only for its optional free sync. The others ask for one sooner.

Where other free paths beat PolyYapp’s

Three apps give away something PolyYapp does not. Free Anki on desktop and Android studies fully offline, runs on Linux and Android, and lets you shape every card and interval, which PolyYapp cannot match. Duolingo’s free course teaches grammar and sentence-building with speaking and writing exercises, on Android and the web. Clozemaster’s free sentences put every word in context, for learners past the beginner stage.

Where PolyYapp’s free path is wider is the absence of rationing: no ads, no energy, no timer and no daily lesson cap, with a ready-made Dutch word list and your own words in one review queue.

What no free Dutch app on this list replaces

No app on this page, free or paid, replaces a course or a teacher who explains grammar in order, makes you speak and write, and corrects you. Daily vocabulary practice alongside a course or a teacher is where PolyYapp fits. For the wider choice, paid apps included, see the best apps to learn Dutch. If you are learning for the inburgering exam, the best apps for inburgering maps which tools cover which part of it, and the learning Dutch hub covers choosing between a course and a vocabulary app.

Sources

All read on 2026-10-31 unless a snapshot date is given:

• Duolingo on the App Store (description, in-app purchase list), Duolingo 101 (profile to save progress) and the DuolingoData Dutch course snapshot (third-party tracker, snapshot 2025-07-08), with its course index
• AnkiMobile on the App Store, Anki’s official site (platforms, free and paid versions) and AnkiWeb shared decks
• Clozemaster on the App Store, Clozemaster’s Dutch page, its 2,000 Most Common Dutch collection (30-a-day free cap), Pro page, FAQ and the community forum thread on the daily limit
• Drops on the App Store, languagedrops.com (Premium features) and FluentU’s Drops review (third-party, free-tier timing)
• Memrise on the App Store, Memrise’s Dutch page and help centre