Road to B1 in Dutch

Continue or start your personal language log here, including logs for challenge participants
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
x 1075

Re: Road to B1 in Dutch

Postby Ug_Caveman » Sat Sep 24, 2022 10:15 am

Thing have only just started to improve from a medical POV and I'm glad I can start doing some more substantial study again.

For the last few days I've been doing some Youtube listening tests which have comprehension questions at the end. The YouTuber who makes them says they're approximately level B1 and I was pretty surprised to understand around 90-95% of everything that was being said (and being able to infer the rest from context.) Managed to answer every summary question correctly.

Just need to work on my production skills (funnily enough just sent an email in Dutch this morning to try and order something from the Netherlands.)
1 x
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

User avatar
tungemål
Blue Belt
Posts: 947
Joined: Sat Apr 06, 2019 3:56 pm
Location: Norway
Languages: Norwegian (N)
English, German, Spanish, Japanese, Dutch, Polish
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=17672
x 2181

Re: Road to B1 in Dutch

Postby tungemål » Sat Sep 24, 2022 10:35 am

Goed zo!
Could you link to the youtube tests?
1 x

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
x 1075

Re: Road to B1 in Dutch

Postby Ug_Caveman » Sat Sep 24, 2022 5:27 pm

tungemål wrote:Goed zo!
Could you link to the youtube tests?


No problem!

These are the channels I use:

Dutch Round 1: https://www.youtube.com/c/DutchRound1
This is the channel which has some example test material graded in CEFR levels between A1 and B2 (according to the creator of the channel.)

Dutchies to be - Learn Dutch with Kim: https://www.youtube.com/c/DutchiestobeLearnDutchwithKim
I use this channel a lot for listening practise - Kim (the instructor) gives lessons in Dutch grammar in the Dutch language. Absolutely fantastic resources and one of the most important ones for me when I was preparing for my A2 exam.

Learn Dutch with Bart de Pau: https://www.youtube.com/c/LearndutchOrg
I don't use this channel as much, but it provides a series of short clips following an animated soap opera of some individuals trying to learn Dutch.
4 x
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

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
x 1075

Re: Road to B1 in Dutch

Postby Ug_Caveman » Fri Oct 07, 2022 11:49 pm

After an extreme amount of procrastination, putting off language study for other things (work-work, university-work, gym-work, music-work and general loafing about...) I finally took toets een from Linguaphone Dutch, scoring 93 out of 100 (losing four of my marks for messing up culture point questions.)

I've managed to get into better habits for reading and listening to unscripted audios via the Youtube channels and feel like I'm still on track to achieve my B1 goal by May.

(I've had to force myself to stay away from Scandinavian languages despite my Nordic noir resurgence. Say what you want about the Danish language with its bizarre counting system and kamelåså, but you can't deny the Danes make fantastic crime dramas.)
4 x
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

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
x 1075

Re: Road to B1 in Dutch

Postby Ug_Caveman » Sun Oct 09, 2022 10:09 pm

Had a bit of a nightmare with my account, got logged out and couldn't seem to log back in.

Realised it was because there's an issue with one of the keys on my keyboard preventing me from typing my password in properly :lol:

Not done any Linguaphone lessons since the test, but have read two stories per night from my reader and watched some more Dutch video content.

Downloaded a whole album from S10 (Eurovision fans will recognise her as 2022 The Netherlands entry, signing De Diepte) and was very happy at how much I was able to understand, and what I couldn't understand still sounded 'familiar'.

If I had to take a listening or reading exam at B1 level, I'm fairly confident I could pass at this stage. My issues are speaking and writing. Need to book some holidays to Flanders I think...
3 x
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

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
x 1075

Re: Road to B1 in Dutch

Postby Ug_Caveman » Sun Oct 09, 2022 10:53 pm

So, quite by chance after I submitted my last post, I went channel flipping an found a Flemish TV show on Channel 4 called Red Light.

Definitely find it harder to listen to faster speech with specialised vocabulary being used frequently, but I can still pick up the gist of a lot of things being said as the show goes on.

One thing I do find distracting/annoying is when the subtitle doesn't translate exactly from Dutch to English, so my brain processes one thing in terms of audio and another in terms of video (usually because a colloquial phrase has been used in English.)
2 x
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

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
x 1075

Re: Road to B1 in Dutch

Postby Ug_Caveman » Tue Oct 11, 2022 12:08 am

Lesson 16 of Linguaphone complete. Going to read a story from the reader then probably fall asleep.
1 x
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

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
x 1075

Re: Road to B1 in Dutch

Postby Ug_Caveman » Tue Oct 11, 2022 11:04 pm

Had a very interesting experience today.

Booked a doctors appointment to check a small issue I've been having (suspect I've injured a small bone in my hand that's making it painful to write) and when I got there I was able to work out pretty quickly the doctor seeing me was Dutch from their accent.

Given this was a medical consultation I didn't want to risk using the situation to practise (even though the previous nights lesson of Linguaphone was literally about hospital visits...) - but there was one small thing where they asked me if I partake in any sports that could have aggravated the injury. When I said the English word for my sport they had no idea what I meant, so I said the Dutch word which they recognised immediately.

I've never been in a situation before where knowing Dutch has had any value to my life in the UK whatsoever, not a single word, until now.

Purely because I see this as an amazing moment (and I'm super tired from prepping for school tomorrow) I'm not going to do a full Linguaphone lesson tonight.
5 x
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

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
x 1075

Re: Road to B1 in Dutch

Postby Ug_Caveman » Wed Oct 12, 2022 11:36 pm

Lesson 17 of Linguaphone completed.

Also made a point of doing Dutch-->English revision of the vocabulary for lesson 16 and English-->Dutch revision of the vocabulary from lesson two to start forcing my brain to work a bit more on the ability to recall Dutch words on demand. Going to do a bit of reading then go to bed.

(Ik heb een röntgenfoto in de ochtend -_-)
2 x
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

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
x 1075

Re: Road to B1 in Dutch

Postby Ug_Caveman » Thu Oct 13, 2022 10:28 pm

Lesson 18 complete along with a Dutch->English revision of the vocab from lesson 17 and an English-> Dutch revision of the vocab from lesson 2.

Also fell asleep listening to a video from Dutch by Kim pitched at the B1 level and was staying pretty in the loop until I finally nodded off. Had I been alert (and paying attention to the Dutch subtitles) I suspect I would have had a fairly solid comprehension.
2 x
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


Return to “Language logs”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: Google [Bot] and 2 guests