Road to B1 in Dutch

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Ug_Caveman
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Re: Road to B1 in Dutch

Postby Ug_Caveman » Sun Dec 04, 2022 1:14 am

Completed lesson 26 but made a few errors (messed up some similar sounding verbs.)

Reaching a point which has been a real trip for me in the past - "er" + a preposition - which I've struggled with a lot, and only get worse at when you add things like adverbs to the mix. Hoping these next few weeks iron it all out for me.

Also, was taken a little by surprise when the vocab list mentioned de Sovjet-Unie... I quite literally wasn't born when such a reference was considered contemporary. Looking forward to lessons including Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia and the Netherlands Antilles in the next few weeks.
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Ug_Caveman
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Re: Road to B1 in Dutch

Postby Ug_Caveman » Mon Dec 05, 2022 12:35 am

Ug_Caveman wrote:Completed lesson 26 but made a few errors (messed up some similar sounding verbs.)


Turns out this was because I did the wrong vocab list at the beginning and used lesson 27's instead of lesson 26's...

Lesson 27 done today, a lot more in terms of listening practise but a short and rather pleasant lesson to work through as it contained a lot of vocab I was already comfortable with (going all the way back to when I finally finished Assimil four years ago...)

Assuming I keep this pace up, I'll be done by mid-Jan at the latest.
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Languages: English (N), Dutch (passed A2 exam in May 2021, failed B1 in May 2023 - never sit an exam when you have food poisoning!)

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Ug_Caveman
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Re: Road to B1 in Dutch

Postby Ug_Caveman » Tue Dec 06, 2022 12:35 am

Lesson 28 today - not my best showing, but that's more to do with my general lack of knowledge around cars.

Starting to get more comfortable with er/hier/daar/waar + preposition constructions, but certainly not an expert by any means yet.
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Languages: English (N), Dutch (passed A2 exam in May 2021, failed B1 in May 2023 - never sit an exam when you have food poisoning!)

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Ug_Caveman
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Re: Road to B1 in Dutch

Postby Ug_Caveman » Thu Dec 08, 2022 11:23 pm

Lesson 29 complete - very, very short lesson but I can see now the more complex grammar structures rearing their heads, ready to trip me up...

16 left of the main course plus 8 from the supplementary course. Doing 1 a day would take me to the first week of New Year. Entries for CNaVT open in February, if I can finish by then, I believe I'll have covered enough to make the entry without worry.
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Ug_Caveman
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Re: Road to B1 in Dutch

Postby Ug_Caveman » Mon Dec 12, 2022 2:00 am

Completed S13 ('De Conferentie') last night - despite being longer listening passages, I think I did OK.

Didn't do a lesson tonight on account of me shovelling six inches worth of snow off my homes driveway and the nearby pavements - rather amazing how a forecast of 'light snow' suddenly turned into a half-foot thick pile of crystal water and the whole of my local area shutting down beyond a few brave drivers.

Compensated for this by writing Christmas cards to my two Dutch speaking friends (Ik hoop dat ze voor kerstmis aankomen...)
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Ug_Caveman
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Re: Road to B1 in Dutch

Postby Ug_Caveman » Tue Dec 13, 2022 12:42 am

Completed S14 - De Verloren Sleutels - tonight.

This was a tricky one for me, the passages were long and the speech was fast. Probably my weakest lesson so far in this particular course.

Not got alarm bells ringing in my head or anything, but need to make sure the gaps from tonight get plugged properly.
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Ug_Caveman
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Re: Road to B1 in Dutch

Postby Ug_Caveman » Tue Dec 13, 2022 11:28 pm

Ik heb geen les vandaag gedaan.

De reden? Ik heb veel meer sneeuw verplaatst. M'n oprit was HELEMAAL bedekt en m'n moeder heeft haar auto om nodig te rijden.

Met een beetje geluk, de sneeuw zal weggaan door de weekend.

(Ik type vanaf nu in het Nederlands om m'n schrijven te verbeteren. Corrigeer alstublieft fouten.)
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Ug_Caveman
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Re: Road to B1 in Dutch

Postby Ug_Caveman » Mon Dec 19, 2022 11:34 am

Ik heb een paar dagen zonder les gedaan.

Ik ben op vakantie (van school voor kerstmis) en ik was heel moe tegen de tijd had ik werk afgewerkt. Dus ik heb rust de vorige week genomen.

Ik heb een paar filmpjes op Youtube gekeken (zoals Dutch With Kim) dus ik heb niet alles stoppen studeren.

Ik zal gauw naar de lessen teruggaan (misschien vandaag of vanmorgen.)
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Le Baron
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Re: Road to B1 in Dutch

Postby Le Baron » Mon Dec 19, 2022 1:34 pm

Ug_Caveman wrote:Dus ik heb rust de vorige week genomen.

Dus vorige week, heb ik wat rust genomen.

Remember: time, manner place. There is no 'place' in the above sentence, but 'time' is vorige week and 'manner' is rust nemen. And after words like 'dus' and a new clause, you get the subject/verb inversion.

I'm mentioning all this for a reason, not to try and trump your Dutch and I don't want to cause discouragement with tiresome correction. The shift from always starting sentences with 'I' as is sometimes done in English, to starting with other elements (from this time, manner, place structure) will transform your Dutch and render it ever more authentic.

So taking some from the above:

A. Ik ben op vakantie (van school voor kerstmis)...
B. Tijdens de kerstperiode, ben ik met vakantie van school / heb ik vakantie van school

'Met' vakantie can be just staying at home, whereas 'op' vakantie suggests you are at a location. It's sometimes easier to just say: Ik ben/heb vrij (van school)... same as 'vrijaf hebben'. There's a small difference between ben/heb here but not worth looking at now.

A. en ik was heel moe tegen de tijd had ik werk afgewerkt.
B. Tegen de tijd dat ik alles af had, was ik heel/erg moe

Again: time, manner, place, even if one of them is missing. And the subject/verb inversion in the next clause. Running sentences 'backwards' like this is extremely common in Dutch; and not uncommon in English either, e.g: 'Tomorrow, if it's not raining, I'll go to the park...', 'After I'd done all the work that I needed to do, I felt really tired and went to bed.' In general choose that kind of construction for Dutch, though not in every case as required.

Notice that in sentence A 'dat' is missing in the construction after tijd, where it begs for a new clause.
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Ug_Caveman
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Posts: 460
Joined: Fri Nov 16, 2018 2:58 am
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Languages: English (N), Dutch (A2 - July 2021), working towards B1
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Re: Road to B1 in Dutch

Postby Ug_Caveman » Mon Dec 19, 2022 9:52 pm

Le Baron wrote:
Ug_Caveman wrote:Dus ik heb rust de vorige week genomen.

Dus vorige week, heb ik wat rust genomen.

Remember: time, manner place. There is no 'place' in the above sentence, but 'time' is vorige week and 'manner' is rust nemen. And after words like 'dus' and a new clause, you get the subject/verb inversion.


Thank you for pointing that out. I'll be honest, I'm not sure if I meant to use rest as a verb or a noun here, I was pretty tired when I wrote this.

Le Baron wrote:I'm mentioning all this for a reason, not to try and trump your Dutch and I don't want to cause discouragement with tiresome correction. The shift from always starting sentences with 'I' as is sometimes done in English, to starting with other elements (from this time, manner, place structure) will transform your Dutch and render it ever more authentic.


I very much welcome correction and improvement from more skilled speakers on my languages so please do not feel like you need to come from a position of apology.

Le Baron wrote:So taking some from the above:

A. Ik ben op vakantie (van school voor kerstmis)...
B. Tijdens de kerstperiode, ben ik met vakantie van school / heb ik vakantie van school

'Met' vakantie can be just staying at home, whereas 'op' vakantie suggests you are at a location. It's sometimes easier to just say: Ik ben/heb vrij (van school)... same as 'vrijaf hebben'. There's a small difference between ben/heb here but not worth looking at now.


To build on my above point, thank you very much - if the distinction between 'met vakantie' and 'op vakantie' hadn't been pointed out to me, I'd never have known any better. I also didn't know 'vrijaf' at all so it's another valuable word for me that I might not have otherwise come across.
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