I think the language/dialect distinction is not even helpful - all that counts is what people understand. As a native German speaker, who never learnt Dutch, I

I think the language/dialect distinction is not even helpful - all that counts is what people understand. As a native German speaker, who never learnt Dutch, I can tell you that I understand nl-NL a lot better than de-CH. There is a reason de-CH is subtiteled in German media.