Dutch Study Group

An area with study groups for various languages. Group members help each other, share resources and experience. Study groups are permanent but the members rotate and change.
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tommus
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Re: Dutch Study Group

Postby tommus » Tue Oct 20, 2020 8:50 am

Yet another report on Nene's progress learning Dutch.
Geen kus
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Dutch: 01 September -> 31 December 2020
Watch 1000 Dutch TV Series Videos : 40 / 1000

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tommus
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Re: Dutch Study Group

Postby tommus » Sat Nov 21, 2020 12:54 am

Schrijfassistent Nederlands (Writing Assistant Dutch)

This is a brand new free website that offers an interesting artificial intelligence approach to correcting your Dutch and offering suggestions for improving your written Dutch. I have just started experimenting with it. There aren't many instructions as to how to use it but it is fairly easy. There are lots of pop-up help and suggestions by clicking on highlighted words. It provides a spell check. It looks at the forms of verbs, it helps with tone, it identifies some differences between Belgian Dutch and Standard Dutch. It is also in a state of flux. There are two different versions. Worth experimenting with a bit. I'd be interested in comments on how useful others find it to be.

Schrijfassistent Nederlands

Schrijfassistent Nederlands voor Anderstaligen
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Dutch: 01 September -> 31 December 2020
Watch 1000 Dutch TV Series Videos : 40 / 1000

JuKarasawa
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Re: Dutch Study Group

Postby JuKarasawa » Thu Jan 14, 2021 1:20 pm

Elsa Maria wrote: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.


Hi everyone!

New joiner here, just found this forum when I was looking for resources to improve my Dutch :)

My name is Juliana and I'm a Brazilian living in the Netherlands (that's why I started learning Dutch). Currently I'm mostly on my own since I don't do well with online classes, so my resources are the materials I used when in-person classes were still possible, various websites like welklidwoord.nl, dutchgrammar.com, n2taalmenu, and my BF (constantly pestered by my questions about the Dutch language :lol: )
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Cèid Donn
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Re: Dutch Study Group

Postby Cèid Donn » Thu Jan 14, 2021 9:21 pm

JuKarasawa wrote:
Hi everyone!

New joiner here, just found this forum when I was looking for resources to improve my Dutch :)

My name is Juliana and I'm a Brazilian living in the Netherlands (that's why I started learning Dutch). Currently I'm mostly on my own since I don't do well with online classes, so my resources are the materials I used when in-person classes were still possible, various websites like welklidwoord.nl, dutchgrammar.com, n2taalmenu, and my BF (constantly pestered by my questions about the Dutch language :lol: )


Welkom!

Ik wens je heel veel succes met het leren van Nederlands! / I wish you much success with learning Dutch!
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PeterMollenburg
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Re: Dutch Study Group

Postby PeterMollenburg » Fri Jan 15, 2021 3:34 am

JuKarasawa wrote:
Elsa Maria wrote: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.


Hi everyone!

New joiner here, just found this forum when I was looking for resources to improve my Dutch :)

My name is Juliana and I'm a Brazilian living in the Netherlands (that's why I started learning Dutch). Currently I'm mostly on my own since I don't do well with online classes, so my resources are the materials I used when in-person classes were still possible, various websites like welklidwoord.nl, dutchgrammar.com, n2taalmenu, and my BF (constantly pestered by my questions about the Dutch language :lol: )


Ja, veel success, hoor! Hoe lang ben je dan in Nederland geweest? Het is zo ver weg van Brazilië, en zo anders. Ik ben australisch en ook als Nederland zo ver weg van mij ook is, vind ik het een heel interessant land. Australië is groot en heel droog met veel ruimte terwijl Nederland en klein, erg nat land is met niet genoeg ruimte!

(Yes, good luck indeed! How long have you been in the Netherlands, then? It's so far away from Brazil, and so different. I'm Australian and even if the Netherlands is so far away from me, I find it a very interesting country. Australia is large and very dry with a lot of space, while the Netherlands is a small, wet country with not enough room!)
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Elsa Maria
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Re: Dutch Study Group

Postby Elsa Maria » Sun Jan 17, 2021 5:41 pm

JuKarasawa wrote:
Elsa Maria wrote: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.


Hi everyone!

New joiner here, just found this forum when I was looking for resources to improve my Dutch :)

My name is Juliana and I'm a Brazilian living in the Netherlands (that's why I started learning Dutch). Currently I'm mostly on my own since I don't do well with online classes, so my resources are the materials I used when in-person classes were still possible, various websites like welklidwoord.nl, dutchgrammar.com, n2taalmenu, and my BF (constantly pestered by my questions about the Dutch language :lol: )

Welcome, Juliana. I look forward to reading about your Dutch journey.
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Le Baron
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Re: Dutch Study Group

Postby Le Baron » Sun Jan 24, 2021 4:13 pm

I don't know how far everyone is along the Dutch path (I see a few B1 and B2), but at the start it's worth going through the basic courses (several in succession), even though the trend today (perhaps with good reason) is the Krashen and Steve Kaufmann inspired method of just listening/reading to huge amounts of content.

For myself, though I already had a bit of exposure to Dutch, I went through the older blue book version of Hugo Dutch in Three Months and then the Hugo's Advanced Dutch by the same author. I strongly believe that you have to hammer some foundation into place before anything can really be built in terms of useful listening, reading, basic conversation. Otherwise you're getting kneecapped at every turn. At that point I was living in Eeklo in Belgium and the accent was impossible for me!

On top of this I also went through a rather old course called Levend Nederlands (from 1975) created by Cambridge University in association with the Dutch Ministry Of Education. I still have this course with all the cassettes. It is dialogue-based with associated pictorial representations. It also has a lot of useful information about pronunciation and meaningful exercises that aren't useless gibberish. I was in Nijmegen around that time and officially registered in the Netherlands so I managed to get sent to the ROC school for learning Dutch, after doing an intake exam which graded me at a good intermediate level, so I think those self study courses were useful. On that course I did part of a book called Code Nederlands, and a really useful thin grammar book called Nederlands in Hoofdlijnen, but quickly moved on to one called Help! 3, which I don't remember finishing.

In connection with this I'll just say a general thing about immersion which others may or may not agree with. There's this idea that immersion in a country where your target language is spoken somehow makes you quickly fluent in a way any other study doesn't, but this is misleading. In the three countries where I've lived I've known plenty people who lived there for years, sometimes as many as 20 years, and who either didn't speak the language or spoke it quite poorly. The fact is even with the language surrounding you it requires the same study effort. So at the ROC it was the combination of organised, comprehensive input/output (with other students at a similar level) and only then the luxury of having the target language around. I think this can be replicated at home with some organisation. I have made deliberate contact with a Spanish community here to get Spanish listening help and practice. It's effort that is most important. Nothing falls into your lap. Admittedly some languages will be harder to cater for.
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Re: Dutch Study Group

Postby tommus » Sun Jan 24, 2021 10:00 pm

Le Baron, welcome to the Dutch Study Group. It is somewhat discouraging how few LLorg members seem to be pursuing improvement in their Dutch. I'd love to see more participation here. I wonder how long ago you managed to establish such a good level of Dutch and how you are maintaining your ability?

In your post, you say: "So at the ROC it was the combination of organised, comprehensive input/output (with other students at a similar level) ." That seems to imply you had a lot of conversational interaction with your fellow students. On this Forum and others, it seems that interaction amongst learners of a language is discouraged because it supposedly reinforces poor understanding, poor grammar, poor vocabulary and poor ability. I have often wondered if the advantages of such opportunities to interact in the target language, and have lots of conversations, etc. with peers without the embarrassment of not speaking well, greatly outweigh any disadvantages of these interactions not being with a native speaker. I wonder what your thoughts would be?
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Dutch: 01 September -> 31 December 2020
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PeterMollenburg
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Re: Dutch Study Group

Postby PeterMollenburg » Mon Jan 25, 2021 2:03 am

Le Baron wrote:I don't know how far everyone is along the Dutch path (I see a few B1 and B2), but at the start it's worth going through the basic courses (several in succession), even though the trend today (perhaps with good reason) is the Krashen and Steve Kaufmann inspired method of just listening/reading to huge amounts of content.

For myself, though I already had a bit of exposure to Dutch, I went through the older blue book version of Hugo Dutch in Three Months and then the Hugo's Advanced Dutch by the same author. I strongly believe that you have to hammer some foundation into place before anything can really be built in terms of useful listening, reading, basic conversation. Otherwise you're getting kneecapped at every turn. At that point I was living in Eeklo in Belgium and the accent was impossible for me!


I completely agree. I'll say that this isn't for everyone, this approach with multiple courses that is, but I do feel the same as you Le Baron, in that several courses in succession are required. I'd take it even further doing quite a few beginner level courses and following them up with more difficult or complex intermediate to advanced courses if they can be found, since they are less common than beginner's courses and simply non-existent in some languages.

I have also used Hugo Dutch in Three Months and found it to be the best in the Hugo 3 Months series, as I have used (but not always completed) this series with other languages as well. I also have the advanced version but haven't used it as yet.

Le Baron wrote:On top of this I also went through a rather old course called Levend Nederlands (from 1975) created by Cambridge University in association with the Dutch Ministry Of Education. I still have this course with all the cassettes. It is dialogue-based with associated pictorial representations. It also has a lot of useful information about pronunciation and meaningful exercises that aren't useless gibberish. I was in Nijmegen around that time and officially registered in the Netherlands so I managed to get sent to the ROC school for learning Dutch, after doing an intake exam which graded me at a good intermediate level, so I think those self study courses were useful. On that course I did part of a book called Code Nederlands, and a really useful thin grammar book called Nederlands in Hoofdlijnen, but quickly moved on to one called Help! 3, which I don't remember finishing.


I don't know these other courses, and I won't hunt them down myself as I've already got so many good Dutch courses, but your sharing of course titles and experiences may indeed come in handy for some other Dutch learners out there.

Le Baron wrote:In connection with this I'll just say a general thing about immersion which others may or may not agree with. There's this idea that immersion in a country where your target language is spoken somehow makes you quickly fluent in a way any other study doesn't, but this is misleading. In the three countries where I've lived I've known plenty people who lived there for years, sometimes as many as 20 years, and who either didn't speak the language or spoke it quite poorly. The fact is even with the language surrounding you it requires the same study effort. So at the ROC it was the combination of organised, comprehensive input/output (with other students at a similar level) and only then the luxury of having the target language around. I think this can be replicated at home with some organisation. I have made deliberate contact with a Spanish community here to get Spanish listening help and practice. It's effort that is most important. Nothing falls into your lap. Admittedly some languages will be harder to cater for.


Agreed, completely. It's definitely a bonus to be surrounded by the language, but its absolutely no guarantee of learning the language, unless the way you learn is to go out and attempt to speak to people every single day and obtain vocabulary and grammatical concepts via socialisation. This kind of approach, for me personally would be fraught with issues and chaotic and that's not my preferred style. Not to mention it wouldn't suit everyone's personality nor their daily routine necessarily.

My wife and I were in the Netherlands 10 years ago, learning the language via course materials. Had we not made that effort, we would not have progressed much at all. You are absolutely right - one must make some serious effort to learn the language and then it is a bonus to have people to interact with around you if you are in a country in which the language is spoken.

Some language learners and polyglots believe it is much more beneficial to go to the country in which your language of choice is spoken only when you are at the high-intermediate to advanced levels. The theory is, that you get much more out of your immersion at this point. I tend to agree with it being the optimal / ideal point for getting more out of your language stay. As a beginner you'd get more out of a book with accompanying audio I think than trying to milk the locals of their teaching potential. You'd have to have some pretty patient locals to do with beginners' questions. At least with an advanced learner, you would've be asking people to slow down and repeat things much at all. As an advanced learner you'd hit the ground running.

Furthermore, as many Europeans and other nationalities speak English nowadays and want to practise their English, the risk of having people switch to English to facilitate more efficient/less frustrating communication all the while getting more English language practice is high for beginners. For an advanced learner, even if they switch on you, you ought to have enough language under your belt to be confident in steering the conversation back to the local language, or even going under the 'foreign' radar to some extent depending on your accent.

tommus wrote:Le Baron, welcome to the Dutch Study Group. It is somewhat discouraging how few LLorg members seem to be pursuing improvement in their Dutch. I'd love to see more participation here.


Just hijacking your comments directed at Le Baron to say that I agree. It'd be nice to see more Dutch learners actively learning around these parts. I myself am only using Dutch on a rotating basis alternating with French with my kids every second day. I currently don't have time to actively study it. Mind you, there are plenty of words and terminology in the Dutch kids books that I am learning, so not all is lost.
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Le Baron
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Re: Dutch Study Group

Postby Le Baron » Mon Jan 25, 2021 2:32 pm

tommus wrote:Le Baron, welcome to the Dutch Study Group. It is somewhat discouraging how few LLorg members seem to be pursuing improvement in their Dutch. I'd love to see more participation here. I wonder how long ago you managed to establish such a good level of Dutch and how you are maintaining your ability?


I managed to get 'fluent' in about 2003 (it helped a lot that I later lived/worked in a homeless hostel, so heard a lot of variety). I still live in NL so I use it every day. I also try to keep on top of books and the papers and watch the telly sometimes. It has slipped on occasion, but I can revive it fairly easily. I think once you've been forced to navigate a lot of situations repeatedly in a language it starts to get solidly ingrained. Since 2016 I've also been wading through the legal swamp of Brexit, so it's given me yet another push.

tommus wrote:In your post, you say: "So at the ROC it was the combination of organised, comprehensive input/output (with other students at a similar level) ." That seems to imply you had a lot of conversational interaction with your fellow students. On this Forum and others, it seems that interaction amongst learners of a language is discouraged because it supposedly reinforces poor understanding, poor grammar, poor vocabulary and poor ability. I have often wondered if the advantages of such opportunities to interact in the target language, and have lots of conversations, etc. with peers without the embarrassment of not speaking well, greatly outweigh any disadvantages of these interactions not being with a native speaker. I wonder what your thoughts would be?


I'm astonished that it's discouraged like that. The way you (correctly as far as I'm concerned) describe it at the end of your post as offering a sort of buffer into using the language without being totally thrown-in at the deep end, is to my mind crucial for becoming functional. After all isn't it the same when we do any activity? We get put with other beginners/intermediate and we all learn how to do it together. Perhaps the important element is at least one person with the ability to guide things. In the situation I described it was the tutor, but he left us to make our mistakes for the most part and it's surprising how many people in the group pick up on errors and help you to iron them out - it's easier to catch them as a listener than when you're on the spot speaking.

Everyone in a group learns different vocabulary and masters different parts of the language according to their skills/needs and this tends to be passed around the group filling in one-another's gaps; much in the way language sharing works among native language speakers. After all isn't it the case that we talk to people and learn new bits and pieces of our native languages all the time? Many hands make light work!
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