Dutch Study Group

[Elsa Maria]

Here is a Dutch study group - a place to encourage each other and discuss learning Dutch.
There is a group already for discussing Dutch in Dutch, so this group will use English to discuss Dutch.

Here is a link to the Discussies in het Nederlands group. I hope that I will be ready for that group someday

If you have ideas for this study group, please post them.

Why are you learning Dutch? What resources are you using? I will post my answers to those questions in a follow-up post.

[Elsa Maria]

Reserved for Resources, etc. This post can be a work in progress - let me know what you would like to see here.

PARTICIPANTS
Participants with links to logs and/or relevant threads, if available:

tommus
https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =18&t=7311

Elsa Maria
https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=6009

hagestolz
https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=9859

thoughtlessboy

Skud Bliksem

PeterMollenburg
https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... f=15&t=784

RESOURCES / RESOURCE THREADS

I will link to already exisiting threads, then we can add in additional resources that aren't covered elsewhere.

Dutch Resources
https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... ilit=dutch

[tommus]

Hello Elsa Maria. It is great to see someone else on LLorg who is concentrating on Dutch. There are not many of us. Even my Dutch friends find it strange that I am studying Dutch. Even though I have several other languages listed that I am presumably interested in learning or improving, they are not getting any attention, and have not been for quite some time. I have pretty well decided to put all my efforts into improving my Dutch.

Why are you learning Dutch? What resources are you using?

My wife and I lived in the the Netherlands for six years. At the beginning, we didn't know a single word of Dutch. It was actually difficult to learn Dutch in the Netherlands because they speak English so well, and they really want to use their English at every opportunity. So I have actually made more progress since I retired and moved back to Canada. The Internet resources for learning Dutch have improved immensely in the last few years. My reason for learning Dutch, in addition to having lived in the Netherlands, is because I find the Dutch and the Flemish to be so very interesting in many respects. Their history, their geography, their culture, and their very practical outlook on life are all so fascinating. Also, my father was a Canadian soldier in the Netherlands during the Second World War, and the Dutch and Belgians are so wonderfully grateful for their liberation. And perhaps another contributing factor for my interest; I put over 18,000 km on my Dutch bicycle on bike paths all over the Netherlands.

Resources: In the beginning, I used several of the recommended courses such as Pimsleur, Michel Thomas, Assimil, etc. A search here on LLorg for Dutch resources will turn up a lot of good ones. Once I got comfortable with reading and listening to Dutch, I read and listened to just about everything I could find on the Internet, concentrating on the newspapers (mainly De Telegraaf and HLN) and the TV news (mainly NOS Journaal 20:00). I read the Dutch and Belgian news every day, and watch the news as often as I can. I also read a large amount of scientific material in Dutch. So now I mainly concentrate on native material. I have also done a lot of Dutch-English language exchanges on Skype which really helped with speaking.

So I hope lots of people will contribute to this new thread in LLorg, both Dutch learners and native Dutch speakers, so we can look forward to lots of motivation and lots of improvement in our Dutch.

[Elsa Maria]

tommus, thank you for sharing your story about learning Dutch! I had a rather similar experience with Danish. My husband and I lived in Denmark for 5 years, and the level of English is also very high in Denmark. I have made a lot of progress in Danish since leaving Denmark two years ago. I look forward to going back for a visit in 2019 with my improved Danish.

As for Dutch...
I formed an interest in the Netherlands as a teen (I am in my 50s now) when I first encountered The Diary of Anne Frank. That was a formative book for me, and I have read it many times. I have also read much of the secondary literature, and I have had the good fortune to visit the Anne Frank House several times (maybe 5 times? I have lost count). I now own the book in English, Danish, Dutch, and Russian.

I thought about learning Dutch when I was young, but I never got beyond the thinking-about-it stage.

We made many visits to the Netherlands while living in Denmark. I fell in love with the country, the language, and the culture. But I didn't put any effort into learning Dutch because my brain was busy learning Danish. And, as most people know, one certainly does not NEED Dutch to get around as a tourist in the Netherlands.

Why am I learning Dutch now? Well, I have a loved one who is living there. I am going to visit them in January. I will probably go again in the fall of 2019.

My learning journey with Dutch:

I started with iguanamon's awsome Free and Legal Challenge. I mostly used YouTube, Duolingo, and the free three-week course from University of Groningen. After that, I started using materials from Pimsleur and learndutch.org and the children's books that I had acquired from my visits. And, of course, continuing with YouTube - I am a big nijntje fan But, being honest, I do not feel as if I have put in a lot of time yet on Dutch.

I recently discovered that Dutch classes are available in my area. At first, I thought I was out of luck because the beginner class started in September. After I met with the instructor, she gave me permission to join the class. So I guess my limited self-study did indeed have some impact. I do have some catching up to do, but I think I will be fine. I have promised both myself and the instructor that I will work hard to catch up. I have signed up for the 365 day challenge on the Language Challenges subforum. My next class meeting is at the end of January. It meets for two hours, once per week.

Well, I guess that is enough for now. I do hope that Dutch learners will find their way here. I will update the 2nd post (resources) after the holidays end.

[tommus]

so I'll start by working through Colloquial Dutch from the beginning

Good to see yet another Dutch language learner. You definitely have an excellent resource with your mother speaking Dutch. Excellent motivation too.

There are at least two Colloquial Dutch books. One is by Bruce Donaldson published in 1996, 1998 and 1999. The second one has the same name, by Bruce Donaldson and Gerda Bodegom, published in 2005. It has the number "2" on the front cover. Both have audio, either included or available. I have both. I think it might be useful to discuss some of the content, particularly grammar points, here in this thread. Dutch grammar (or even English grammar) has never been a favourite of mine but I recognise that I would benefit from paying a bit more attention to it. The standard online Dutch grammar course is:

http://www.dutchgrammar.com

However, it is quite long and involved, and it takes a long time to work through. A much shorter Dutch grammar and perhaps much more useful one is the free Dutch Duolingo Grammar Guide. I have spent some time on the online Duolingo Dutch course which is good for beginners but I found it a bit boring after a while. However, the separate Grammar Guide is a nice summary and has some very useful information, and is well presented. It would be interesting to discuss some of the information in the Guide. And I have found one mistake. Can you find it?

Dutch Duolingo Grammar Guide

So I suggest some discussion here on Dutch grammar, amongst other things.

[tommus]

I do hope to at some point discuss the grammar points, especially word order...

I still find word order to be a challenge. It is one thing to memorise the rules, but it is yet another to get it right when you are speaking.

I'm not sure I have much chance of spotting it unless it's an English grammar mistake!

It is the last line on Page 32. • kat "cat" + -tje = kitten. That would produce 'kattje" which has too many 't's.

Probably the most important part of this Grammar Guide is the section on 'de' and 'het' words. Lots of good advice and an important part of getting the de/het correct, as well as getting the adjective correct. In the long term, I think that the proper usage of de/het comes from massive exposure to native Dutch reading and listening.

[hagestolz]

Thanks so much for this, Elsa Maria! I'm coming back to Dutch in a small way after a break of almost a year and your idea has enthused and motivated me to get started again.
Although I don't have your or Tommus' personal connection to the language I find it fascinating in its own right and particularly the sounds of Dutch and Flemish.

I aim to devote 2-3 sessions of 30-60 mins per week as a start. No particular goal, no pressure, just give myself the opportunity to reconnect with the language and see where it leads. The reason for this approach being that I have other long-term language projects on the go and want to simply enjoy my Dutch.

Yesterday I started to read a Ruth Rendell thriller on Kindle, which I read about 18 months ago and has highlights and notes marked from the first reading. So pleased that I remembered a lot and could read quite quickly. I also read some sections aloud this morning and spent some time on vocabulary training (Goldlist method). One of my areas of concern is my accent, which I'm told sounds quite German, and I'd like to improve it.

My final input will be listening to NOS news. I'll aim for once a week to start with - a while ago I could understand the gist pretty well, so hopefully will get back up to speed here, too.

Good luck everyone with your learning in 2019!

[tommus]

Kersttoespraak Koning Willem Alexander - Christmas Address King Willem Alexander

Every year there is a speech at Christmas by the King or Queen of the Netherlands. This year 2018 was the 6th by King Willem Alexander. Before that, it was by his mother Queen Beatrix. These Christmas video messages are online at the site for the Royal Family (Het Koninklijk Huis). Willem Alexander started a new tradition with his Christmas message in 2013. Every year, he ends his speech with the same sentence:

"Ik wens u allen - waar u zich ook bevindt en hoe uw persoonlijke omstandigheden ook zijn - een gezegend Kerstfeest."

"I wish you all - wherever you are and whatever your personal circumstances may be - a blessed Christmas."

Each video has the matching Dutch text. Here are all of Willem Alexander's Christmas messsages:

Kersttoespraak 2018

Kersttoespraak 2017

Kersttoespraak 2016

Kersttoespraak 2015

Kersttoespraak 2014

Kersttoespraak 2013

[Elsa Maria]

Welcome to the Study Group, thoughtlessboy and hagestolz!

Thank you very much, tommus, for the info about the royal speeches. I have been following the Queen of Denmark's New Year's Eve speeches for years, and they have been great learning tools. There is a lot of repeated vocabulary, which helps with comprehension. I will definitely fold the King's speeches into my Dutch studies as soon as I feel ready for them.

Do any of you have a log? If you post the link here, I promise to read your log. I have a log, but I have not had the habit of posting in it. I'm going to try to do better this year, but that I won't promise, lol. Mine is linked in my profile.

[hagestolz]

Here is a link to my log, which I started yesterday

https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=9859