Dutch lessons per contact hour: EUR 77.75 one-to-one against EUR 16.30 in an intensive group

Dutch course prices are almost impossible to compare, because every school quotes a different unit: some a course fee, some a number of lessons, some a number of weeks. Convert them all to one unit — euro per contact hour — and the spread turns out to be far wider than it looks. Two Amsterdam examples that both publish their prices openly are enough. Volksuniversiteit Amsterdam sells a one-to-one online NT2 course of 10 lessons of 60 minutes for EUR 777.50. UvA Talen sells Dutch Beginners Intensive, four weeks of 20 lessons of 2.5 hours each, for EUR 815.

Do the division first. EUR 777.50 over ten hours is EUR 77.75 per contact hour; EUR 815 over fifty is EUR 16.30. Same city, same language, and one-to-one costs 4.8 times more an hour than the intensive group course. That does not make either wrong: private tuition follows your pace and can drill only the part you cannot say out loud. It means the multiple deserves to be on the table before you choose. Divide your own budget by each figure and you know how many hours it buys on each side.

• Volksuniversiteit Amsterdam: a one-to-one online NT2 course, 10 lessons of 60 minutes, EUR 777.50, with a separate EUR 25.00 intake and level assessment. (source 1)
• UvA Talen: Dutch Beginners Intensive, four weeks, 20 lessons of 2.5 hours, 50 contact hours in total, EUR 815. (source 2)
• The UvA Talen fee covers the intake, the group course, the exam, a resit within six months of finishing and a certificate; the coursebook Nederlands in gang is a separate EUR 45.00. (source 2)
• The Volksuniversiteit group NT2 track runs six levels, from Beginners 1 (A0-A1) to Gevorderd 2 (B2.1-B2). (source 1)

The second sum is about time, and it is underestimated far more often than the money. The UvA Talen course runs Monday to Friday and takes you from A0 to A2 in four weeks, and the school states you should expect up to six hours of self-study a day on top. Add it up: 50 contact hours plus 20 teaching days times six hours is up to 170 hours, which across four weeks is roughly 42.5 hours a week. That is a full-time job. The real barrier to this course is therefore not the EUR 815 but whether you have a clear month, which rules out most people in work and is not something a price list will tell you.

Two costs are easy to miss. The Volksuniversiteit charges its EUR 25.00 level assessment separately, while UvA Talen folds the intake into the fee; conversely UvA Talen charges EUR 45.00 for the book. So the honest comparison is not 777.50 against 815 but EUR 802.50 against EUR 860.00, and once each side carries the item the other bundles, the hourly figures are EUR 80.25 against EUR 17.20.

Where

Volksuniversiteit Amsterdam, with the one-to-one course online, and UvA Talen in Amsterdam

When

The UvA Talen intensive runs four weeks, Monday to Friday; the Volksuniversiteit one-to-one is scheduled across 10 lessons

Price

One-to-one EUR 777.50 for 10 hours; intensive EUR 815 for 50 hours; level assessment EUR 25.00; coursebook EUR 45.00

Booking

Both require a level assessment first; at UvA Talen the intake is included in the fee

Note

The intensive assumes up to six hours of self-study a day, roughly 42.5 hours a week over four weeks, which is hard to carry alongside a job

Hokimi field note: divide your budget by the hourly figure first, then count the hours you can actually free up each week, because the cheaper course is no use if you cannot finish it.