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A Padawan learns Dutch/Ind./Fr. - TAC ’14 | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Hekje Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 4703 days ago 842 posts - 1330 votes  Speaks: English*, Dutch Studies: French, Indonesian | Message 537 of 568 20 March 2014 at 8:27pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Ja, Voetnoot is eigenlijk een verzameling van zijn columns op de voorpagina. Heel goed zeg.
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| Hekje Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 4703 days ago 842 posts - 1330 votes Speaks: English*, Dutch Studies: French, Indonesian | Message 538 of 568 22 April 2014 at 10:54pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Al heb ik hier al lang niet geschreven, ben ik nog steeds goed bezig met lezen en zo.
Het weer wordt steeds beter hier en de zon schijnt. Ik vind het moeilijk om binnen te blijven. Ik ben onlangs een vrijwilliger geworden, daar besteed ik veel 'vrije tijd' mee. Meestal ga ik naar bejaardentehuizen om spelletjes met de bewoners te spelen. Zelfs bejaarde mensen hebben wat lol nodig. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Vos Diglot Senior Member Australia Joined 5566 days ago 766 posts - 1020 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Dutch, Polish | Message 539 of 568 03 May 2014 at 1:48pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Wat lief van je Hekje. Waar heeft je naar die beslissing genomen om vrijwilliger te worden? Wat voor spelletjes speel
je met ze? Zit je inmiddels iets goeds te lezen? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Hekje Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 4703 days ago 842 posts - 1330 votes Speaks: English*, Dutch Studies: French, Indonesian | Message 540 of 568 08 August 2014 at 9:05am | IP Logged | |||||
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Ik leef nog
Well, life got interesting for a few months there. I left my job and started freelancing full-time; I moved; and I actually ended up traveling, to the Galápagos and California. I've wanted to do all of these things for a long time, and then they suddenly happened all at once. I was over the moon! Life was also insane. Obviously things have settled down now, which gives me time to think about languages for the first time in forever. I haven't really studied since April. There are some Dutch-language things I do every day automatically, but other than that -- not much. It actually feels fine. I would have beat myself up about it earlier this year, but taking a break has given me some perspective on everything. The only thing I regret is not being with Team Oranje as much I would like. Other than that, I feel like some time away was much needed. With that in mind, I'm back for the moment, just probably in a more relaxed capacity than before. Hi/hallo/bonjour/selamat pagi. Random language thoughts and updates Dutch -- Dutch is stable at B2-ish. It's the only language I'm pretty much locked into doing things in on a daily basis -- news, music, social media, and so on. Indonesian -- Indonesian has taken a hit. I've listened to some podcasts now and then, but other than that, it's probably still languishing around A0-A1 or so. French -- French is totally off the radar for the moment. However, it was helpful with... Spanish -- When we were in Ecuador, I was surprised by how much written Spanish I could understand without having ever studied the language. Between just growing up in the U.S. and recognizing French verbs, I could get the gist of a lot of text. There were actually times when I could read something my brother, who actually took Spanish in high school, couldn't. To be fair, he totally hated learning Spanish, so it's no knock on his abilities. It was just cool to experience how having a background in a couple languages can help you grasp the basics of a new one fast. Spoken Spanish was a totally different animal, but I expected that. Latvian -- Consider this one a fun bonus. Through a series of funny circumstances, I ended up hanging out with a lot of Latvians this summer. There's a slight chance I'll be visiting Latvia later in August, so I've looked over the basic greetings and pronunciation. It's a nice-sounding language. One fun thing I learned early on about Latvian is that male names -- first and last -- almost always end in "s" (e.g., Jānis Jansons, Edgars Pētersons, etc.). This is so they can decline properly. Likewise, female names almost always end in "a", with few exceptions. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Hekje Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 4703 days ago 842 posts - 1330 votes Speaks: English*, Dutch Studies: French, Indonesian | Message 541 of 568 13 August 2014 at 7:34pm | IP Logged | |||||
Meeting Benny Lewis on his book tour
Oh my gah! Lemme take a selfie! So a cool thing happened the other day -- I met Benny Lewis while he was in New York on the 10th! He was promoting his book. Much has been said about Benny's methods on this website, but for me, he was the spark that got me into language learning. Way back in 2011, Benny's go-out-and-just-do-it type attitude really inspired me to commit to Dutch and make it a part of my life. I still admire his energy and enthusiasm for sharing language learning with others. Anyway, so I hauled my butt to Greenpoint on Sunday. The event was in the basement of a cute bookshop. I was about 20 minutes late -- Google Maps, I'm looking at you -- and when I got there Benny was about a third of the way into a chapter-by-chapter rundown of his book. I haven't read the book yet, but it definitely seems to be geared for beginners. Most of what Benny talked about was how to get into the right mindset, how to memorize vocabulary, how to find ways to practice, etc. If you know Benny's methods, you know he's an advocate of starting grammar only at the intermediate stage. Let's just say that he mostly focused on how to get to that point. So, the content wasn't new for me or pretty much most members of this forum. However, it was great to see that these basic tips were actually very helpful for a majority of the audience. I kind of expected it to be a 4 and 5+ language crowd, but I was probably one of the more advanced people there in that I had already learned another language. This made me wonder if anyone was actually going to take some of Benny's more advanced advice, like hiring a tutor on iTalki, but at least he got them thinking about the basic steps. At the end of the talk, Benny gave us an opportunity to find other people in the room learning our language. Unfortunately no one was learning Dutch, so I just bought his book and got in line to meet him. When I finally got to him, I felt the kind of excitement that I imagine a 12-year-old girl in the '90's felt meeting the Backstreet Boys. (Hence my totally psyched, slightly scared-looking expression in the photo above.) I asked Benny if we could speak Dutch even though I know it's not one of his stronger languages. He agreed with my assessment, but said that we could go ahead. I explained in Dutch how much I loved the language and that I really appreciated him learning it, even though it is such a small language relative to others. He kind of nodded along and was like, "Oh, nice," in Dutch, but yeah, as he said, he clearly is a bit rusty. It was still super cool and I don't blame him for not being able to perform on the spot. We exchanged a few more pleasantries in English, he signed my book, and I headed out. Summary: Benny did a great job with his talk. Kudos to him! It was also definitely interesting to be in a room with so many other language learners. I actually wish there were more meetups like this in NYC -- sometimes it's just good to geek out. Also, while in line, I met two lovely ladies my age who were learning Japanese and German/Hebrew/Italian. I'm pretty sure neither of them are on HTLAL, but they've still been chugging along on their own and making progress for 5+ years each. It's great to see how many people, even outside of this forum, really love language learning and make time for it. Yay! 2 persons have 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 542 of 568 14 August 2014 at 2:48am | IP Logged | |||||
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So I'm not the only person who does German/Hebrew/Italian apparently?
Sounds pretty cool. I was always in love with languages, but Benny was an inspiration to take it to the next level. So if you're in New York, should we assume you're on board for the expected 2015 (nee 2014) polyglot conference in NYC? 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4707 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 543 of 568 14 August 2014 at 6:58pm | IP Logged | |||||
Dat had ik nou ook. Maar ik heb hem daarna nog een keer ontmoet in Berlijn, en ook wat langer met hem gesproken. Ik snap sowieso niet waar alle haat tegenover Benny vandaan komt - ik vind hem juist heel vriendelijk en open, ook als je langere discussies met hem houdt. Voor wat betreft zijn voordracht met betrekking tot het boek - die vind ik heel goed, juist omdat zijn doelgroep de mensen zijn die nooit beginnen of die moeite hebben als Engelstalige een vreemde taal te leren. Die mensen probeert hij meer te inspireren. Ook wel mensen zoals jij en ik die al wat meer ervaring hebben. Hij is vooral heel goed omdat hij twee voordelen heeft ten opzichte van andere schrijvers: 1) hij is een uitstekende spreker in een publieke omgeving. Voor een presentatie is hoe je iets zegt meer van belang dan wat je precies zegt, of in elk geval minstens zo belangrijk. (Dit heb ik hem trouwens ook verteld). 2) Hij is een goed zakenman. Hij is vooral goed als zakenman in de moderne internetwereld. Wat betreft zijn Nederlands - ik heb het niet echt met hem gesproken, we hebben vooral in het Engels en Frans gesproken (Engels vaak ook omdat Lauren erbij was). Ik kan niet echt een oordeel vellen maar ik vind het ook niet zo interessant om de 10e taal van een polyglot als case study te nemen. Je kunt beter als vergelijkingsmateriaal zijn Spaans of Frans nemen - daar heeft hij echt vanaf nul moeten beginnen en zich omhoog moeten werken. Maar je had wel gelijk dat hij heel veel advies uit zijn boek herhaalt. Dat is voor mensen die zijn blog goed kennen, zoals jij en ik, niet zo boeiend qua inhoud. Ik heb daarom ook vooral op de presentatie gelet, omdat ik vind dat mensen daar ook veel van hem kunnen leren. Ik heb trouwens tijdens zijn lezing in Amsterdam specifiek vragen gesteld over hoe je ingewikkeldere zaken aan kunt pakken als je al ver gevorderd bent. Hij heeft toen een voorbeeld aangehaald van wat hij deed in het Frans. Het toeval wil dat we dezelfde lerares Frans hebben ;)Ik heb dus dezelfde oefeningen gedaan als hij! Edited by tarvos on 14 August 2014 at 6:59pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Hekje Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 4703 days ago 842 posts - 1330 votes Speaks: English*, Dutch Studies: French, Indonesian | Message 544 of 568 14 August 2014 at 10:53pm | IP Logged | |||||
Yes! You have a friend who lives in New York. That's cool that Benny was motivating to you too. I feel like his site is so visible on Google, a lot of us have stumbled across him early on probably. I'm definitely in for the next Polyglot Conference if I'm still here! Actually, I was looking forward to it happening this year, but when it switched to Novi Sad... haha, no way I can make that. x_x Can we count you in for New York too then? Are you on the east coast? :-)
(Excuse my mistakes please...) Oh wat tof, ik wist niet dat je Benny had ontmoet! Wat leuk. Ja, ik ben het met je eens. Benny is zeker niet perfect maar ik heb hem altijd heel vriendelijk gevonden. Verder is het echt belangrijk dat hij beginners probeert te inspireren. Ik en jij, wij gaan gewoon door met onze talen, maar er zijn veel mensen die denken dat ze talen gewoon niet kunnen. Dus ze beginnen gewoon niet. Dat is jammer, want talen zijn een van de niet vele vaardigheden die, zelfs als je beginner bent, nog steeds nuttig kunnen zijn. Ik merkte ook dat hij een uitstekende spreker is. Hij leek me een beetje moe, maar hij deed nog steeds heel erg vriendelijk en zijn moppen waren redelijk grappig. Ik vind hem een heel goed zakenman ook. In de laatste paar jaar doet hij steeds beter. Daar kan hij echt trots op zijn. Wat betreft zijn Nederlands - ja, ik vind het juist leuk omdat hij van plan is om Nederlands meer te bestuderen. Nederlands is zo'n kleine taal (vergeleken met het Spaans, enz.), zeldzaam kom ik medestudenten tegen. Het kan me dus niet schelen dat hij zo'n klein accent of geen breed woordenschat heeft. Ik kan echt niet geloven dat jullie dezelfde lerares Frans hebben. Small world hoor. Wat heerlijk. :-) 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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