If you want to sound Dutch, imagine you are a German constantly suffering from a debilitating stroke.
ha. My boss used to call it "German, on steroids" when we were working Amsterdam. I thought it was amusing, but never quite agreed. Actually, Amsterdam is about halfway between Berlin and London, as the Messerschmitt Bf109 flies--well, sort of, Nijmegen probably is closer to that point, but close enough--so it maybe isn't surprising that Nederlands sounds about halfway between English and German. Count to ten in English, then in German, then in Nederlands and you'll get a feel for that. Their language isn't particularly difficult--within a few weeks I could ask where the nearest subway station is, order food and drink, etc., and be understood--but it does have some sounds that you will not have heard in English. Many technical words that came up in lab were easy because they were just like German (Stickstoff, Sauerstoff, etc.), or sort of like German (wettenschappen sort of like wissenschaft, duiken sort of like tauchen, etc.). Since I had already lived in Germany for a year prior to working in Amsterdam, it was probably somewhat easy to pick up on Nederlands. As for pronunciation, the hardest part was the combination of "sch." I had assumed it worked like German, and initally mispronounced words like Schipol. I finally got used to it.
It's pronounced at 0:04 here.
That's what I was trying to describe, although I suppose I wasn't doing a good job of it.
Anyway, Geert Wilders isn't particularly hard to pronounce. To yankees, I'd say just start like you're coughing up a hacker during allergy season. He is a freaky-looking dude, but he's amusing to watch, and he pronounces Donald Trump very well. In fact, Dutch talking heads pronounce Donald Trump, American style, very well compared to German talking heads. Further evidence that Nederlands is more like English than German is.
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