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Dutch as a Stepping Stone to German | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| geoffw Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4679 days ago 1134 posts - 1865 votes  Speaks: English*, German, Yiddish Studies: Modern Hebrew, French, Dutch, Italian, Russian | Message 9 of 15 09 April 2012 at 3:07pm | IP Logged | ||
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I'd try to think first about what exactly you want to do with these languages. If you ended up much better at some than others, would that matter to you? I would start with whatever you want/need to be best at in the long run. For most people, that would mean starting with German and then moving to Dutch, but everyone is different (and I love Dutch).
As an example, I learned English (my native language) first, then German as a foreign language, and as a result it's 1) unlikely that I'll ever be better at any language than English, and 2) unlikely that I'll ever be better at a foreign language than German, simply because of the headstarts I have in each. I can also chime in on the German --> Dutch direction. I haven't tried anything but developing passive skills in Dutch, but it's pretty easy knowing three Germanic languages already (and having dabbled in the Nordics, as well as French, both of which seem to have some influence on Dutch vocabulary). IIRC, when I was a kid in Germany I used to watch Dutch TV shows sometimes and get about half of it, despite the fact that I'd only started learning German a year or so earlier. Another comment though: have you learned a second language before? If not, I would recommend trying to focus on just one until you reach a decent level in that. Your chances of success in the long run may be much improved. Learning two at a time definitely is possible, though. 6 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6588 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 10 of 15 09 April 2012 at 4:54pm | IP Logged | ||
Four years ago I asked ProfArguelles about the order of starting new languages. I've since started all the languages on my "main" list, apart from Hindi (where I really just adore the writing system), and several from my "very interested" list, namely those I could already understand and Indonesian because I have a very good friend who speaks it. Each of them has its own story and the order was completely different from anything I could've planned. I think I also deliberately kept Portuguese, Italian and Spanish apart but here I am, roughly intermediate in all of them. Italian, Dutch and Spanish really teased me by being so easy to understand, so that's a factor you shouldn't neglect. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| geoffw Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4679 days ago 1134 posts - 1865 votes Speaks: English*, German, Yiddish Studies: Modern Hebrew, French, Dutch, Italian, Russian | Message 11 of 15 09 April 2012 at 5:09pm | IP Logged | ||
That's a good post for taking stock of your progress, and it looks like you're still on pace for your goals. On the one hand, someone could say--but in the last 4.5 years, you've only gotten one new language to fluency! Closer inspection shows that you took two languages from basic to advanced, which takes at least as much work as going from zero to basic fluency, so that's like learning three languages to fluency at a rate of one per 1.5 years. That's not even to mention the plethora of intermediates, which must have taken a ton of work as well. In sum, I'd say that this success is a vote in favor of your approach, at least for those who are seeking to achieve serious polyglottery in the long run. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6588 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 12 of 15 09 April 2012 at 6:38pm | IP Logged | ||
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:)
I was already at advanced fluency in English really, though my English has certainly improved a lot since then :) I'm also quite close to basic fluency in Portuguese now and not far from it in German. I also could've reached basic fluency in Esperanto (and over 4 years, even advanced fluency) but I lost interest in it. Oh and it's all been too much fun to call it work :P And well, I just think that the expression "life is what happens when you're making plans" is very true about language learning. It isn't linear and your ideas about what's possible and what isn't are going to change all the time; same with your preferences and what works for you (I'm happy to say I've overcome my issues with listening). And this happens in a unique way to everyone. Of course many just enjoy making plans... But really, if it motivates you to know that once you're "done" with Spanish you can start Dutch or German, you probably just need to start it now and look for new sources of motivation for Spanish. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4698 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 13 of 15 10 April 2012 at 3:09pm | IP Logged | ||
The syntax is similar (they both have that typical verb goes to the end construction, although in subclauses they order them slightly differently), but even though you would find the logic behind them easily absorbed, application can really differ between the two languages. I think I would get German to a decent level, and really familiarise yourself with how that language works, and then you could do Dutch and note how the languages differ. Maybe there could be some mixups as a result of learning them simultaneously. I doubt I am the best person to ask though, since I learned Dutch pretty much from day 1, and my German most of the time is syntactically adapted and mispronounced Dutch. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6588 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 14 of 15 10 April 2012 at 8:30pm | IP Logged | ||
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As for interference, see this thread.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| baronb Triglot Newbie Belgium Joined 4595 days ago 2 posts - 3 votes Speaks: Dutch*, EnglishC1, FrenchB1 Studies: German, Arabic (classical), Arabic (Egyptian) | Message 15 of 15 17 April 2012 at 10:16pm | IP Logged | ||
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I live in Belgium and my mother tongue is Dutch. I have never learned German but I can state with confidence that I
am intermediate to advanced in the language just because of my mother tongue. I have now decided last week to start studying it to really master the language and mainly the grammar. If you speak Dutch and Latin you actually know 80% of the language. As Dutch will get you there with vocabulary and Latin with grammar. This because the hardest grammatical thing to learn about German according to me are the grammatical cases. Which is an attribute that Latin has well. I would personally start with German because Dutch is not a very useful language. However if you are determined to learn all those languages. I would start with Dutch because it is the closest language to english (except for fries which is spoken in the north of holland) so it will be easier and more rewarding. The satisfaction you'll get from learning dutch will give you a motivation to study the harder languages 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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