PeterMollenburg wrote:Hey Le Baron,
I need to thank you for your considerate, polite reply, clear reply... Thank you. As you may have noticed my feathers were beginning to become a little ruffled. I was somewhat baffled of your apparent refusal to acknowledge Dutch grammatical rules, but your clearly written reply makes a whole lot of sense - you weren't disputing them at all.
Yes, I tend to agree the so-called long vowel endings are not so clearly long in speech, if long at all. Upon reflection I feel like some people may sound them out a little long while others might clip them. In fact, the same person (myself likely included) use a mixture of both for the same words depending on context and other factors affecting speech rhythm such as the speed at which one is talking, emphasis etc. I guess this is perhaps a good example of where while things on paper when explained from a grammar perspective make sense, when applied to speech, well, they don't necessarily.
Thing is, I rely heavily on course books at the beginning stages of language learning, so when it comes to being okay with rules, I usually am, eventually (after it's hammered in, even if I don't like them!), but most native speakers don't read/work with such books, so some can be prone to make errors where rules are seemingly unnatural, I guess is the best way to put it. And in this case, unless such rules are explained and internalised, native speakers are going to make errors given it's unnatural application - ie what's heard in speech is going to be written down and therefore often incorrectly.
So, your points make a lot more sense now, thank you for explaining. However, I guess I just feel like they make a fair bit of sense to me given I've learned this stuff straight out of books and then applied it to my Dutch mind as I speak the language. I don't know all the plural rules but I have a handful of the main ones memorised, drummed into my head even from my days of Hugo Dutch in 3 Months.
It's good that we are able to reach a point of mutual understanding. You have also forced me to go back and look at grammar I haven't looked at in years and where I could forget and make mistakes. Since I saw that I wasn't fully appreciative of the use of 'possessive' apostrophe after all vowels (except e) as a rule. So, like many here in NL, sometimes not being officially grammatically accurate in all cases and working on habit and 'feel'.
PeterMollenburg wrote:but I have a handful of the main ones memorised, drummed into my head even from my days of Hugo Dutch in 3 Months.
Ah, so you are also a graduate of Hugo Dutch. That and the follow-up book were the best books I used. After those two I sat a placement exam for the state Dutch programme in Belgium and was placed intermediate. They are very worthy books. I think Ug_Caveman is doing the second book now.