I wear two hats. I am both a general linguist and a neerlandicus (= Netherlandicist, or scholar of Dutch, including in my case its sister language, Afrikaans). With respect to Dutch Studies, I can be brief: Once you have tasted the richness of Dutch literature (from Belgium and the Caribbean as well as the Netherlands) or the richness of Afrikaans literature (by both Afrikaners and "Cape Coloureds"), you will appreciate the value of studying modern languages related to German as well as German itself. My courses Dutch 120 and 131 provide a streamlined introduction to reading knowledge of Dutch and to Modern Dutch literature. If you know German well, you can acquire a reading knowledge of both Dutch and Afrikaans almost "for free." And it is not for nothing that both Dutch literature and Afrikaans literature have been fertile testing grounds for the most sophisticated of recent literary theories.