Have/had the English and the Dutch have close relations throughout European history.

[Jax Humanhater]

From what I have been reading, it seems like the English and the Dutch had lots of ventures together dating back to colonial times.

Sure, there was the Anglo-Dutch war; Britain seizing what would become New York and so forth.

I figured that since there are a handful of Dutch dialects almost entirely like English and the English ca rely on their Dutch neighbours for good business, no.

Care to give me a history lesson, here?

 

[Lars Brugman]

Actualy the dialect that is closest to English is the Frisian(Fries in Dutch) dialect, the dialect of Limburg sounds like it's German mixed with a little bit of Dutch'.

Also both of the languages come from the same motherlanguage which is Germanic.

Probably all wrong

 

[Mike Sterckx]

Well both their beer tastes like piss so there's a connection

(hides in corner)

No, honestly i have no idea. I have a hard time understanding the Frisian dialect but i would never have linked it to English. It leans more to german i would say.

Here is a song in the Frisian dialect:

I'm probably all wrong too, except for the beer part hehe.