How to get past the B2-C1 plateau?

[emk]

@emk: When I talk about native-like level, I mean the level needed to teach the language to teens. My teachers talk about C2, but this doesn't mean I have to have a native accent for example. I "just" need to use the language as correctly and accurately as possible with the correct range of vocab.

Ah, well, that's a somewhat less stressful goal, then.

Talking about immersion, I guess studying the language at university and never using anything else than Dutch during these clases and with the teaching is regarded as immersion, and it's been 5 years I've been doing it. But this only concerns my Dutch classes of course

For the kind of immersion I'm thinking about, Dutch classes don't really count. They'll help you get to B2 certainly, but I'm thinking of something more intensive. For example, my wife and I have spoken almost exclusively French at home for years now, and it's not enough to push me over the top. I'm only interacting with one French speaker on a regular basis. And sure, my basic conversational French is utterly automatic. But my immersion is still far more limited than that of somebody who has lived as a francophone for years—attending a French-speaking university, working in a French-speaking office, socializing with French speakers, and so on. I simply don't have the breadth of experience, nor the necessity to be truly good at French. And so my brain allocates my scarce mental resources accordingly.

And it shows. Some of the local French families organized a dinner the other night, and I was tired, and they started conversing rapidly among themselves, and it was just too much work to keep up. They were deft and witty, and I was slow and imprecise. I ended up taking a nap. It's not that I can't speak French, but sometimes, it's just too much work to keep up with the natives, especially when I'm sleep deprived.

Any further tips, regarding writing for example? I'm not sure I'd like to hold a diary and have it correctxed, I don't need people to read my life. I could maybe find articles, summarise them, give my opinion and have it corrected on lang-8?

Honestly, lang-8 is really great at B1, but if you can write a page of Dutch with no obvious errors, and only minor weirdness and imprecision in your word choice, then you've probably outgrown those correction sites. Basically, very few people on those sites want to correct a two-page essay, and it's very difficult to correct prose that sounds almost right. Most untrained people will overlook errors or correct things that aren't wrong, at least beyond a certain level.

I would honestly consider hiring either advanced tutor or an actual school teacher from the Netherlands to correct anything longer than a page, or which is written in a C1/C2 style.

[Elenia]

You can never be native-like unless you move to the country, AFTER having studied the language seriously for several years.

And you'll always retain a faint accent.

To illustrate: In any English-speaking country you'll encounter thousands of people who have learned English all their student life, and then moved to the country as an adult, being immersed in English from then on.
How many would you mistake for a native speaker?
Answer: Not a single one.

PS. I speak as one such person.

I disagree speaking as a native English speaker who has come across (and been fooled by) non native English speakers. None of them were trying to fool me, and they all told me where they were from, but had they been trying I would never have guessed. I obviously, as a native English speaker, have a high tolerance for different accents, given the spread of English and the difference of accents that a native English speaker might have, but all of these people could have quite easily hoodwinked me.

But this isn't at all relevant to the conversation.

[tommus]

How many would you mistake for a native speaker?
Answer: Not a single one.

That is your experience, but not mine. I have a very good Dutch friend who came to Canada at age 22, not speaking any English. He is now 80 and can hardly speak Dutch. But he has no accent or anything that isn't 100% Canadian English. And I have known a number of other non-English-native immigrants that spoke flawless Canadian English. I met a young Dutch guy in The Hague once. He was about 25 and had spent 5 years at an American university. I never suspected he was not an American until he told me. His accent was 100% American.

But of course, I have other friends who have been in Canada for more that 35 years who still have a very strong foreign accent. In almost every case, the difference is whether the spouse is also a non-English-native and they speak their original language in their home.

Here in Canada, there are countless native-French-speaking people from Quebec who learned English after high school (often in university, in business, in the military) who speak flawless, native-like English, as well as flawless, native-like French. I have a number of personal friends like that.

So a flawless native-like second language, learned as an adult, is not only possible, but there are lots of examples. So, for those who really want to do it, it is hard, but it is possible.

[rdearman]

The only thing that bothers me as far as reading is concerned, is that I have never fancied Dutch literature (I've had 4 years of dutch literature at university and have never liked it). The only books I could read are those from the university library about linguistics and literature, which I don't fancy that much. Well, I do like linguistics, but not that much alone, I prefer it in a class setting.

Now I have only been to Holland 3 or 4 times in my life, and only for a day or two, but I'm pretty sure they sell books there which aren't about linguistics and literature. In fact, I'd go as far as to say they've probably got a thriving market in SciFi, Horror, Fantasy, Mystery and just about any other genre of books you'd care to name. So... perhaps you should try the public library not the university one, and perhaps a trip to your local bookseller might be in order.

[Jar-Ptitsa]

The Dutch are famous for speaking English to people who are not native speakers, even if you speak it very well. During my stay, I met some Dutch speakers from parts of Flanders, they spoke a dialect and were often spoken to in English because they were considered as non-native...

It's ridiculous!!!

Maybe I was lucky with them, but when I was in Holland they didn't speak to me in English.

It's because that decision is based on how cumbersome they feel communication is, and with you it's not cumbersome to speak Dutch

Dat is leuk

[PeterMollenburg]

I think that Dutch is problematic because it has got so many dialects, and they are impossible to udnerstand for each other, I mean the different ones, and the people speak them, so it's difficult to leanr the standard Dutch.

Can you live in Holland during your studies? In some places in The Neterhlands they speak more standard Dutch than the Flemish, who've got such annoying dialects. not Limburg, of course, but further north?

Watch NL1,2 on the TV and read their newspapers and study in Dutch I mean what you can find, although I can imagine that it's better in English and French.

I will think of more ideas, I 've got to go now.

The best places to hear standard Dutch as it is spoken on television is in the Randstad and western parts of the Netherlands. Anything further south veers into close to Flemish territory quite quickly, I don't even want to talk about Limburg, and what they speak in the northeast are dialects heavily influenced by Low German (in fact they are Low German dialects influenced by Dutch, although most young people in the Netherlands are more reticent to speak dialect nowadays).

The best Dutch is spoken around Haarlem, but you can find good Dutch in any of the western areas - sadly, also the area where the concentration of English speakers is highest, except if you live in one of the suburbs outside the center (and even then many people will be quite capable). One of my friends from the US was an au pair and she got good because she specifically lived outside of the big cities with a family with young children where people came to work at the house who didn't speak much English if at all. That's the same reason my Spanish and Mandarin Chinese comprehension are very good - I spoke them in places where the foreign language was necessary to communicate. It doesn't mean I speak either perfectly - but it's quite clear I speak both of them fairly well, and with a particular degree of fluency.

Keep in mind that you can learn how to speak Dutch well, and there are many foreigners despite the stereotypes and hassles that can and do learn to speak Dutch well. For example, there is a common trend here that Danish football players speak good Dutch - and most of them really spoke Dutch very well. Some of them have played here for years and have become analysts on television, where their accuracy and fluency is a necessary attribute. We even have a native Ukrainian on TV who analyses football in Dutch and no one complains despite his notable accent, because he speaks Dutch well. Some of our most famous actors or talkshow hosts were not Dutch-born, such as Victoria Koblenko or Eva Jinek. The latter was even a newsreader, despite moving to the Netherlands at eleven! But almost all of these have careers in Dutch or have Dutch family/wives and so on. They have been here for years. This kind of immersion is necessary.

You're making me want to go back to the Netherlands! It's not me, it's you

[DaveBee]

One of my friends from the US was an au pair and she got good because she specifically lived outside of the big cities with a family with young children where people came to work at the house who didn't speak much English if at all. That's the same reason my Spanish and Mandarin Chinese comprehension are very good - I spoke them in places where the foreign language was necessary to communicate. It doesn't mean I speak either perfectly - but it's quite clear I speak both of them fairly well, and with a particular degree of fluency.

There was a US YouTuber, who taught english in Korea, who said much the same thing. Of her peer group, the ones who learned Korean beyond phrase book level were those who were assigned to schools in rural areas. Those who had to speak Korean. The ones in/near Seoul could live in an english-speaking bubble.

[guiguixx1]

I've decided to just keep reading in French or English 30' a day to finish the books I'm currently reading and to add 45' of reading in Dutch with novels (for everyday vocab) and 45' of reading of scientific books and articles for my MA dissertation. When reading these books, I'll mostly focus on vocab and grammar.
I'll also watch the news in Dutch again instead of French. I'd also like to try to find and study 20 words each day from the books I read and my everyday language use. And one of the most challenging thing (changing habits are always difficult) is to stop using English as my thinking language and replace it by Dutch. It's been about 7 years that I've been using English to think and speak to myself, so it's not easy to change it, but I'll try to pay attention to it and stop with English.

I'll also try to find some series or TV shows in Dutch. I recently came across Wat Als, which I love, but I don't know other series and TV shows except "de slimste mens ter wereld" and some series which I have already tried but didn't like

If anyone has any further suggestion, please let me know!

[reineke]

I would give the target language 100% of my attention. It's a "target" language, and something you have chosen to push to near mastery level for professional reasons. It"s not a "shoot from the hip while doing other things" type of pastime. I wouldn't measure my time in minutes.

[Jar-Ptitsa]

guiguixx, do you want to teach in an atheneum?

I agree with reineke.

I don't watch TV, mostly, only soemtimes. There's a thread on this forum about Dutch TV. I think that Dutch and Flemish are absolutley usless actors and their programmes are rubbish, but for the language it would be very useful for you, especially listening, pronunciaton, how they speak etc etc.

But I know that in Wallonia you can't get the Flemish TV package from Belgacom, only the Wallonian one. We asked them if we could have the Brussels or Flemish one before we moved to England because Flemish TV has subtitles for the English programmes, but Wallonian TV speaks in French instead (we wanted to listen in English). They said no, not possible.