Road to B1 in Dutch

[Ug_Caveman]

Starting to get my mojo back and fall into the swing of things with Advanced Dutch - lesson two completed and feeling much more confident. I'm getting through vocab without trouble, written exercises coming together quite well, and I've tested myself against some of the listening/spoken exercises and found my understanding to be pretty decent. I did more listening exercises with some random B1 materials on the internet and held up quite well.

Certainly by no means perfect and I still make some amateur mistakes, so thinking I will revert to Linguaphone as my main course, but I'm starting to process the higher standard material much better, and right now feel like I'm on track to sit B1 in May. Just under 9 months should be enough time to complete Linguaphone, Hugo Advanced, Colloquial 2 and consume enough extra reading/listening material to get there.

Decided to park any extra language related work for now, I really want to pass this one.

[Ug_Caveman]

Finished the first four lessons of Linguaphone Dutch - I suspect I'll be able to get the whole thing finished before Christmas.

[Ug_Caveman]

Bit of a bad headache tonight, but still managed to get through daily lesson.

Up to Linguaphone Dutch lesson 8 (and managed to find my missing Supplemental Exercises book which I was getting worried I'd thrown out.)

Decided that once I've sorted my B1 out, my next language will be Swedish, French or Spanish (have personal reasons for wanting to study all of them, so will narrow it down a bit later.)

[Ug_Caveman]

Completed lesson 10 of Linguaphone. Next 5 lessons will come from the supplementary material.

Made a couple of silly mistakes by not actually understanding what the questions wanted me to do, and ended up using articles when I should have been using pronouns.

Should be on track to compete the course in approx two months if I can keep my pace up.

[Ug_Caveman]

Completed the first supplementary exercise - definitely more tricky than the main story lessons, more complex sentences in the listening and some phrasing I wasn't totally familiar with. Didn't make any mistakes in the oefeningen though.

One thing I noticed is how I didn't struggle with the switch between Dutch and Belgian accents, something they highlighted as a big point in the notes but really didn't seem to be a huge change.

[Ug_Caveman]

These Supplementary lessons really are a step up - having to track much more information that you do for the regular course lessons. Complete Supplementary Lesson 2 today.

But they're great practice (especially for listening work) and still feeling like I'm on track.

After a bit of soul searching, decided my next languages once I've taken my Dutch B1 exam will be a combined assault on French and Spanish. Choice is based around utility I'd have for them going forward - with personal connections to both France and Spain, a desire to explore the BeNeLux area more and an interest in visiting Canada.

[Le Baron]

One thing I noticed is how I didn't struggle with the switch between Dutch and Belgian accents, something they highlighted as a big point in the notes but really didn't seem to be a huge change.

Yes, for the mainstream accents - Algemeem Nederlands/Algemeen Vlaams the difference is not as great as is often made out. News programmes and the like are less a challenge, though if you watch something like e.g. the police series Code 37 the accent can take some getting used to. I remember watching a film called Aanrijding in Moscou, probably the year it came out, which uses a thick regional Gent accent and it caught me well off-guard. I used to live in Belgium, including the Flemish half and did come up against some tricky accents, but there are as many here in NL. It's not something I worry about. It's no different than the accents around England, the better you are at the general language the fewer obstacles you have in all cases.

For some years (and because I learned Dutch in Belgium) I couldn't even understand the Dutch news properly and had to watch the Belgian news instead! I found the Dutch accent harsh by comparison.

[Ug_Caveman]

Yes, for the mainstream accents - Algemeem Nederlands/Algemeen Vlaams the difference is not as great as is often made out. News programmes and the like are less a challenge, though if you watch something like e.g. the police series Code 37 the accent can take some getting used to. I remember watching a film called Aanrijding in Moscou, probably the year it came out, which uses a thick regional Gent accent and it caught me well off-guard. I used to live in Belgium, including the Flemish half and did come up against some tricky accents, but there are as many here in NL. It's not something I worry about. It's no different than the accents around England, the better you are at the general language the fewer obstacles you have in all cases.

For some years (and because I learned Dutch in Belgium) I couldn't even understand the Dutch news properly and had to watch the Belgian news instead! I found the Dutch accent harsh by comparison.

I looked up the Moscou film, I see what you mean about the accents being much harder to understand (although I can still pick out the odd word.) I guess I'll need to consume more content to get close to a proper understanding...

On the subject of media, by a totally random coincidence, I've just (as in within the last hour) stumbled on an Irish-crime drama called 'Hidden Assets' which has quite a lot of scenes set in Antwerp. And, unlike certain other TV shows, (*cough*Van Der Valk*cough*) has native Dutch speakers actually speak Dutch to each other. I can follow some of the discussions, but a lot of them require vocab I'm not yet familiar with (mainly to do with crime and immigration.)

[Ug_Caveman]

After a bit of soul searching, decided my next languages once I've taken my Dutch B1 exam will be a combined assault on French and Spanish.

Having thought this through a bit more, decided it would be best to focus on one language in its entirety first. So once I'm happy with my Dutch level, French shall be the next official member of the party (as I have more resources for it and more chances to practise.)

Nothing against Spanish - but French will deffo have more immediate use to me in the coming few years.

[DaveAgain]

On the subject of media, by a totally random coincidence, I've just (as in within the last hour) stumbled on an Irish-crime drama called 'Hidden Assets' which has quite a lot of scenes set in Antwerp. And, unlike certain other TV shows, (*cough*Van Der Valk*cough*) has native Dutch speakers actually speak Dutch to each other. I can follow some of the discussions, but a lot of them require vocab I'm not yet familiar with (mainly to do with crime and immigration.)

I watched an episode of Van der Valk the other day (the old version, not the new one) where the murderer was using a German children's book as a model for his murders