Dutch is difficult. Complete mastery is almost impossible for foreigners and even after years of daily use, most Dutch people will still be able to pick you for a foreigner. If you are in The Netherlands for work, your employer may require you to learn the language, even if the company language is English. Most employers will send you off to a language course, most notoriously with "the nuns" at Regina Coeli (http://www.reginacoeli.nl). Other institutes offer good Dutch courses as well. Try the Universities in your neighbourhood.

At the moment of writing a political discussion is ongoing about making basic Dutch language skills compulsory for every foreigner staying in the country for over three months. This means that no matter where you work or live you would have to follow a government approved language course or face consequences for your permission to remain in The Netherlands. Regardless of the outcome of the discussion, you may want to prepare yourself for some learning.

In practice the country is very accessible for non Dutch speakers. As a consequence of a long tradition in foreign trade and a multicultural heritage almost every Dutch person speaks at least one foreign language. Trying to speak Dutch in daily life can be difficult due to the fact that many Dutch people want to show off their linguistic skills or find it easier to understand you in your native tongue.

Added 31/12/05 by Alexandra - I am of Romanian descent and currently living in Canada. I have lived in Holland for almost 4 years and I have to say that I found Dutch to be extremely easy. I also speak Romanian, French and, obviously, English and of all languages I found Dutch grammar particularly easy. The prononciation may be a bit on the difficult side considering the guttural "h"-sounding G, but I found I was able to master that in about 6 months. Please do not scare people away from learning Dutch, as it truly is an easy, beautiful language and Dutch people appreciate the efforts made to learn their language, not to mention they open up even more to foreigners that are putting in the effort.

Added 20/01/06 by Lanfranco - I second what Alexandra says: I lived for about 4.5 years in Amsterdam and my Dutch was fluent. People wouldn't realize that I was a foreigner. Some believed that I came from the South of the Netherlands or from Belgium. Later I worked in Belgium for a while, and people said that I spoke: "gewoon nederlands".