Road to B1 in Dutch

[Ug_Caveman]

Officially made it halfway through Hugo's Dutch in Three Months after having to take an extended break for other exams.

Also starting a small side project in another language (which, for now, shall remain anonymous...) but I'm more than willing to kick it out should it cause any issues with my main studies.

How useful are you finding Hugo Dutch?

Reasonably useful - I'm going through it mainly to reinforce basic sentence structure more than anything else. Am hoping to move onto the Advanced course once I'm done, then Colloquial 2 (both completed alongside Linguaphone.)

As long as I can keep my third party input up, I think I should be OK for the B1 test next May.

[Le Baron]

Reasonably useful - I'm going through it mainly to reinforce basic sentence structure more than anything else. Am hoping to move onto the Advanced course once I'm done, then Colloquial 2 (both completed alongside Linguaphone.)

As long as I can keep my third party input up, I think I should be OK for the B1 test next May.

Yes, I wondered if it might be below your level. For the record I recall that I found Hugo's: Taking Dutch Further a really useful course. Especially for some awkward particle words.
The Colloquial 2 you mentioned looks good. I bought the book in 2005 from a book fair, but never used it (giant orange tulips on the cover). It still looks brand new!

All that should easily get you to B1, if not a bit beyond that grammar-wise.

[Ug_Caveman]

Yes, I wondered if it might be below your level. For the record I recall that I found Hugo's: Taking Dutch Further a really useful course. Especially for some awkward particle words.
The Colloquial 2 you mentioned looks good. I bought the book in 2005 from a book fair, but never used it (giant orange tulips on the cover). It still looks brand new!

All that should easily get you to B1, if not a bit beyond that grammar-wise.

I'd say generally yes (although it is helping me pick up some new vocab that Colloquial 1 didn't cover) - but I'm really just using it to neaten up my sentence structure more than anything else (after such a long layoff it seemed like a good idea to go over.) A lot of stuff is coming back quite fast, need to make sure I've got separable verbs down properly though

I think my Colloquial 2 edition is 2015? But I assume the content isn't too different - I really liked Colloquial 1 (I'd say it gave me the confidence I needed for the A2 exam more than any other course I'd done), hoping it lives up to be a good successor.

[Le Baron]

Have you ever encountered the irritations of the word 'stofzuiger'? Some people still have uncertainty around this. 'Gestofzuigd' or 'stofgezogen' or 'stofgezuigd'?

The correct one is 'gestofzuigd' even though the word zuigen (as a strong verb) is always conjugated as zoog,zogen, gezogen... A lot of people here still think it is a separable verb. I did too. Probably by comparing words like weggezogen.

Always minefields.

[Ug_Caveman]

So I've finally encountered something which has been a challenge - perfect tense constructions with multiple verbs in the past tense.

(IE: we hebben het moeten doen)

I forgot that both lexical verbs need to be infinitives, not past participles, in this instance.

Very glad that Hugo has such a solid structure of exercises for this sort of thing.

[Ug_Caveman]

Up to chapter 11 out of 12 in Dutch in 3 Months.

Plan is to finish the book, then go back through certain grammar points again for extra reinforcement (reflexive verbs, separable verbs and perfect tense constructions with multiple infinitives.)

After that move onto Hugo Advanced Dutch before Colloquial Dutch 2.

[Ug_Caveman]

Finished chapter 11 of Hugo Dutch in Three Months - hit a real snag trying to get my head around relative clauses and the correct time to use die/wie/waar

Definitely one grammar point I need to go over again.

[Ug_Caveman]

Finished Chapter 12 of Hugo - the last section of the book

I feel like I'm still weaker in some areas than I should be (relative clauses and passive voice especially.)

I've tried going back through relative clauses again, feel like I need to take a step back and try something different for a while instead of letting myself go mad trying to learn those rules.

[Le Baron]

I just dug out my old copy (of the first 3 months book I presume?). You must must be using a new version, because in this one relative clauses are lesson 19! and the passive in lesson 20...

Did you find relative clauses more difficult than working out the use of 'er'?

With those relative clause sentences have a go at writing them out and draw a ring around the parts like term grouping in algebra, you'll find they are all of exactly the same structure:
- (Het boek) - (dat ik pas gelegen heb) - (is uitstekend)
- (De man) - (van wie dit huis is) - (heeft tien katten)
- (De pen) - (waarmee ik schrijf) - (is van hem)

All of them have practically the same elements: an object, then some relative situation clause about it, then a final explanatory statement. Also that in the relative clause middle bit (after the relative pronoun) the main verb is at the end and that all this to the end is just the same as a subordinating conjunction, which is in an earlier lesson.

[Ug_Caveman]

I just dug out my old copy (of the first 3 months book I presume?). You must must be using a new version, because in this one relative clauses are lesson 19! and the passive in lesson 20...

In my edition (I think early 2010s?) those are around lesson 55-60.

Did you find relative clauses more difficult than working out the use of 'er'?

I won't say I'm perfect at using 'er', but I definitely seem to get it better than relative clauses. Not entirely sure why it seems to 'fit' better in my brain, but it does.

With those relative clause sentences have a go at writing them out and draw a ring around the parts like term grouping in algebra, you'll find they are all of exactly the same structure:
- (Het boek) - (dat ik pas gelegen heb) - (is uitstekend)
- (De man) - (van wie dit huis is) - (heeft tien katten)
- (De pen) - (waarmee ik schrijf) - (is van hem)

All of them have practically the same elements: an object, then some relative situation clause about it, then a final explanatory statement. Also that in the relative clause middle bit (after the relative pronoun) the main verb is at the end and that all this to the end is just the same as a subordinating conjunction, which is in an earlier lesson.

Thanks for the advice, I'm not sure why this is proving to be such a sticking point for me

Once I'm happy with these points, I'll move onto to either Linguaphone or Hugo Advanced Dutch (or maybe both...)

I've also started doing something which I term 'passive-listening', effectively an inverse to shadowing, where I listen to easy to understand Dutch content while focusing on something else (playing video games, playing bass [without an amp], exercising.) Trying to improve my ability to understand simple sentence structure without needing to put huge efforts in.