Road to B1 in Dutch

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Le Baron
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Re: Road to B1 in Dutch

Postby Le Baron » Wed May 03, 2023 10:52 pm

It's a good plan. Let's say you don't get the result you want from yesterday's exam; by the time you reach the point of a resit you're just going to be a lot further along the road. And sitting a B1 exam when you're possibly already comfortably over the B1 hump is going to be a much more pleasant experience.
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Ug_Caveman
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Re: Road to B1 in Dutch

Postby Ug_Caveman » Tue May 16, 2023 2:45 pm

Ug_Caveman wrote:For the next two weeks I'm taking a short break from intense studying as I have some university exams coming up and want to spend some time focusing on revision for those first. Once those are out the way I can focus pretty much all of my free time on Dutch for the foreseeable future.

Uni exams done, which has been a very intense few weeks of revision. Honestly no idea what to think of them - one of them I thought went considerably better than the other but have no idea how the grading curve works *shrug*

Also, circumstances have changes very slightly and in a few weeks I'll be off to visit Sweden for the first time ever (a plan which came very much out of the blue when some friends of mine invited me to stay with them) - so looks like I'll be going back to some basic Swedish for a few weeks before heading off. Will continue to read and listen in Dutch though.
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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 May 16, 2023 10:26 pm

16/05/2023:

Lesson 1 of Pimsleur Swedish
15 minutes of Michel Thomas Swedish
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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 » Wed May 17, 2023 11:11 pm

17/05/2023:

Lesson 2 of Pimsleur Swedish
20 minutes of Michel Thomas Swedish CD 1
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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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Le Baron
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Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=18796
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Re: Road to B1 in Dutch

Postby Le Baron » Wed May 17, 2023 11:27 pm

And no bothersome exam to get in the way of Swedish enjoyment. Carry on sir.
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Ug_Caveman
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Re: Road to B1 in Dutch

Postby Ug_Caveman » Wed May 17, 2023 11:54 pm

Le Baron wrote:And no bothersome exam to get in the way of Swedish enjoyment. Carry on sir.


"SWEDEX A2 - can I make it in five weeks?"

Of course, the answer is "no". But enough to make sure I'm not totally lost when I hear/see Swedish for the few days I'm there should be enough.

Not sure I'll continue with it for a long term project though. Still quite drawn to the idea of studying French, but want to see my CNaVT results first before I commit long term energy to another language.
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Le Baron
Black Belt - 3rd Dan
Posts: 3513
Joined: Mon Jan 18, 2021 5:14 pm
Location: Koude kikkerland
Languages: English (N), fr, nl, de, eo, Sranantongo,
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Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=18796
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Re: Road to B1 in Dutch

Postby Le Baron » Thu May 18, 2023 12:14 pm

When do you expect to get the CNaVT results?
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Ug_Caveman
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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 » Thu May 18, 2023 7:33 pm

Le Baron wrote:When do you expect to get the CNaVT results?

The examiner said if we don't hear anything by the 11th of July to email them directly and they'd chase them up.
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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 May 25, 2023 1:28 pm

Done a bit of stock taking of what courses I currently have that I've not done and might be useful moving forwards with Dutch:

* Colloquial Dutch 2
* Basic Dutch: A Grammar and Workbook
* Intermediare Dutch: A Grammar and Workbook
* Dutch Without Toil
* Speak Dutch
* Routledge Dutch Frequency Dictionary
* Various bilingual readers

Once I'm finished with my trip to Sweden, I'm thinking of going through Basic Dutch to really hammer home sentence structures and important grammar points, before moving onto Colloquial 2 and Intermediate Dutch. Also tempted to add in one lesson of Assimil Without Toil per day to increase exposure to the language and maybe 20 words of route learning from the dictionary (working back to front) per day too.
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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
Green Belt
Posts: 460
Joined: Fri Nov 16, 2018 2:58 am
Location: England
Languages: English (N), Dutch (A2 - July 2021), working towards B1
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Re: Road to B1 in Dutch

Postby Ug_Caveman » Mon May 29, 2023 10:59 pm

Got a bit bored and watched some episodes of the German-Austrian remake of 'The Bridge' called 'Der Pass'.

I really do love how commanding a low-level of Dutch still opens up quite a lot in terms of mutual intelligibility between Dutch and German. I still needed to glance at subtitles around 85% of the time, but was able to pick up the remaining 15% from cognates and context.

Oh how I wish these two didn't interfere so much, I'd love to properly study German to a solid level. But no matter how hard I try, there's just too much to mix up :cry:
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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!)

Seeking: Linguaphone Polish and Linguaphone Afrikaans


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