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VivianJ5’s Language Log | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| VivianJ5 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 4262 days ago 81 posts - 133 votes  Speaks: English*, French | Message 1 of 18 05 January 2014 at 2:41pm | IP Logged | |||||
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My first language learning log post, so proud ;-) !
Still have to think about my goals a bit, since I'm still traveling and don't have a lot of language learning stuff with me, nor much time to work on it. But as I stated when joining TAC 2014, and Team Oranje, I want to crack the code of Dutch this year, and make it a primary focus. I don't know exactly when we will be leaving The Netherlands (have been here 4.5 years so far), but would hate to leave without having made a real effort to becoming functional. I'm already listened to Michel Thomas Foundation Dutch a couple of times, but will probably have another go before moving on to Michel Thomas Advanced - really like this method! Then have a go at Assimil or Pimsleur as a basic learning text, while beginning to do some Listening/Reading (L/R). I'm reading all the time anyway, so would make sense to do the same in Dutch: real novels, articles, stories, radio programs, etc. I think it would help to keep things interesting. Looking forward to progressing enough to post in Dutch, as some point... Edited by VivianJ5 on 07 May 2014 at 7:01pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| NMW Newbie Netherlands Joined 4487 days ago 36 posts - 46 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Dutch | Message 2 of 18 05 January 2014 at 4:29pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I tried Pimsleur, but it was too slow and too formal for my tastes. I enjoyed the Michel Thomas audio courses though and then moved on to Assimil, which is where I think I made a bit of a beginner breakthrough. I did a lesson a day and added words that I struggled with to Anki. I've also done some L/R with Twilight and Harry Potter, and that worked quite well because it gave me a sense of achievement, that I could get through a book in another language. Now I'm mainly using vocabulary courses on Memrise (which works better for me than Anki did), listening to Radio 1, reading Dutch books and so on.
Good luck and welcome to Team Oranje! 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| VivianJ5 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 4262 days ago 81 posts - 133 votes Speaks: English*, French | Message 3 of 18 05 January 2014 at 4:54pm | IP Logged | |||||
Thanks, NNW, that sounds about what I'd like to do. Already have the Twilight and Happy Potter, plus HP in audiobook form, so looking forward to starting those. Actually found the "Little House on the Prairie" books in Dutch, so working on making some parallel texts to start reading those. I figure the children's vocabulary is a better fit for my very basic vocabulary right now. And definitely planning on doing some intensive listening to the radio. Plus thinking I might try to watch "Goede tijd, Slechte tijde," which seems like a very long-running Dutch soap opera. I make terrific progress years ago in French when I watched a very cheesy soap for kids: the vocabulary was very repetitive, and lots of facial expressions and sight gags to help with comprehension. Thanks for your suggestions! 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| NMW Newbie Netherlands Joined 4487 days ago 36 posts - 46 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Dutch | Message 4 of 18 05 January 2014 at 6:42pm | IP Logged | |||||
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That's very true. Soap operas are normally exaggerated which can really help you keep up with what is going on. I spent a lot of time watching Flikken Maastricht and Penoza, although Penoza was a lot harder for me to follow what was being said, it was a really good series and I managed to work my way through the first two seasons. It's just important to find something that you enjoy; the first series I really got into was Flikken Maastricht and I didn't mind watching the same episode or repeating the season because I enjoyed the show.
It's quite funny actually, I made my way through the first Twilight book (so around 300 pages or so) using L/R and then shortly after I tried to read a short children's book... I can't remember which one, I think one of the Paddington Bear books (I don't that it was more than 20 pages), but I actually found it much harder to read because the vocabulary was aimed at a younger audience and I didn't have exposure to a lot of the words there. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| tommus Senior Member CanadaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5866 days ago 979 posts - 1688 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Dutch, French, Esperanto, German, Spanish | Message 5 of 18 05 January 2014 at 11:08pm | IP Logged | |||||
My wife and I spent 6 years in the area of Den Haag (Wassenaar). It is not as easy as one might think to learn Dutch in the Netherlands, especially in Den Haag. Everyone speaks good English and wants to practice their English. Better opportunities to speak Dutch when you get to the north and the east. Looks like a great group in Team Oranje. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| VivianJ5 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 4262 days ago 81 posts - 133 votes Speaks: English*, French | Message 6 of 18 06 January 2014 at 6:20pm | IP Logged | |||||
That's exactly the issue in The Hague - much, much to easy to get by with just English, no real pressing reason to learn Dutch, except for my own sense of obligation. I firmly believe that an expat has the duty to at least TRY to learn enough of the host country's language to be able to have basic conversation. And I've failed miserably at my own belief... But enough regret. I can complain until the cows come home, only some dedicated work will get me there. Don't much care about being fluent, just want to be able to respond when a Dutch person comments on the weather, when a repairman comes to the house (and speaks no English), and be able to read the newspaper. Not huge goals, but challenging for me all the same. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| geoffw Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4688 days ago 1134 posts - 1865 votes Speaks: English*, German, Yiddish Studies: Modern Hebrew, French, Dutch, Italian, Russian | Message 7 of 18 06 January 2014 at 6:44pm | IP Logged | |||||
A worthy goal, and I wish you success! From my time in Bavaria, I can tell you that sometimes the repairman can be the most challenging of these by far, if the repairman also only speaks a local "dialect" rather than the academic standard language. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| VivianJ5 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 4262 days ago 81 posts - 133 votes Speaks: English*, French | Message 8 of 18 13 January 2014 at 1:02pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Back from my holiday travels (five weeks is a long time to live out of a suitcase!), and trying to get back in the swing
of my life, including Dutch study. While I haven't actually studied much during my travels, when I did have some free moments, I was working on creating parallel texts for reading practice. I've created a parallel text using Laura Ingalls Wilder's "Little House in the Big Woods," the first book in the Little House series. After finding some information on the net on how to format for a parallel text, I've found the simplest way is the best way, at least for me: Creating parallel texts 1. Upload both English and second language versions of ebook to Calibre (I adore this software; highly recommended!). 2. In Calibre, convert both versions of ebook to ".txt" - I've found it easier to convert from EPUB format to text. 3. Open text files of each converted TXT ebook. 4. In Open Office (I'm sure Word is probably better for this), create a new document. 5. In this document, create a table with 2 columns and the number of rows = chapters in ebook. (Three columns might be better, to have a small space between the two texts, but I used only two.) 6. Copy all of chapter one of the second language TXT ebook. Paste into first row, first column of the new document. 7. Copy all of chapter one of the original language TXT ebook, then paste into the first row, second column of the new document. 8. Continue copying and pasting each subsequent chapter into a new row. 9. Don't forget to save as you copy and paste. 10. Once all the chapters are copied/pasted, begin fine-tuning the format. This is where you can adjust the paragraphs in each column to become "parallel," where paragraph 1 of language 1 is right next to paragraph 1 of language 2, and so on. Having each chapter in a separate row helps avoid messing up the formatting of previous chapters if a mistake is made at some point; it also helps the software to not freeze (although this still happens regularly). Once the document is formatted and the rows are "paralleled," I'd recommend saving (or in Open Office, "exporting" ) as a PDF file, so that your formatting stays fixed. I've found that closing, and then reopening the document can mess up all the formatting hard work, so a PDF keeps it fixed. Depending on the length of the book, this can take a bit of time, but it's pretty mindless, and you're actually already beginning the parallel reading by lining up the rows. Once I finished the parallel text of "Little House," started work on "Twilight," which was harder since the text is about four times as long, and the program kept hanging. Not sure how to stop that from happening...might have to look into other word processing software (MS Word, or Mac Pages). I'd love to know if anyone else has tried to create their own parallel texts, and, if so, what their process is. And of course, this is all busywork; time to get back into the real work of listening and reading! 3 persons have voted this message useful |
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