Afrikaans is a West Germanic language, spoken in South Africa and Namibia. It is a daughter language of Dutch, originating in its 17th century dialects, collectively referred to as Cape Dutch. Although Afrikaans borrowed from languages such as Malay, Portuguese, French, the Bantu languages or the Khoisan languages, an estimated 90 to 95 percent of Afrikaans vocabulary is ultimately of Dutch origin. Therefore, differences with Dutch often lie in a more regular morphology, grammar, and spelling of Afrikaans. There is a large degree of mutual intelligibility between the two languages—especially in written form—although it is easier for Dutch-speakers to understand Afrikaans than the other way around.

When reading Dutch it is very easily understood. But listening to a Dutch speaking person, it gets a little difficult. I guess when you have more exposure to listening to Dutch it will get easier. Afrikaans originated from Dutch, so there are a lot of similarities. I'm really not an expert on Dutch at all so I can't give you an exact answer as to how their grammar differ from Afrikaans.

One incredible difference is that Dutch has gender for its nounds - words are male and female. Not true for Afrikaans. Also learning conjugation e.g. he walks, she walks, they walk etc, there are more changes in Dutch. Afrikaans the verb is more likely to remain the same.