Neighbouring countries in western Europe with different languages, and the confusion is mostly a word problem: the Dutch language belongs to the Netherlands, not to Germany, even though "Dutch" and "Deutsch" look like the same word. Deutsch is what Germans call German. Holland is not a synonym for the Netherlands either — it is two provinces within it.
The core difference
- Germany — German-speaking; Germans call the country Deutschland and the language Deutsch.
- Netherlands — Dutch-speaking; the Dutch call the country Nederland and the language Nederlands.
Why "Dutch" points at the wrong country
This is the heart of the confusion. Dutch and Deutsch come from the same ancestor, a Germanic word meaning roughly "of the people", which once covered the whole continental Germanic-speaking area. English narrowed Dutch to the people of the Low Countries; German kept Deutsch for itself. So the resemblance is real, but the modern meanings point at different nations.
Holland is not the Netherlands
North Holland and South Holland are two of the twelve provinces, containing Amsterdam, Rotterdam and The Hague. Using Holland for the whole country is like using England for the whole United Kingdom — widespread, understood, and not accurate.
The languages are related but separate
Dutch and German are both West Germanic, as English is, and a Dutch speaker can often make out written German. They are not mutually intelligible in speech, and Dutch is generally closer to English in its sound and simpler in its grammar — no case endings on nouns, unlike German.
The names in their own languages
- Germany → Deutschland, language Deutsch
- Netherlands → Nederland, language Nederlands
- The people → Germans and the Dutch in English; Dutchmen now sounds dated
