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A Padawan learns Dutch/Ind./Fr. - TAC ’14

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Hekje
Diglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 4495 days ago

842 posts - 1330 votes 
Speaks: English*, Dutch
Studies: French, Indonesian

 
 Message 409 of 568
05 December 2013 at 7:46pm | IP Logged 
Dutch

(Let op: SPOILERS)

Pagina 307 van De ontdekking van de hemel. Het boek is niet te geloven, hij is zo gek. Wij hebben de engels
en zo volkomen nagelaten. Nu gaat het boek over een baby drama. Ada was Max zijn vriendinnetje, vervolgens
werd ze Onno's vriendinnetje, máár toen gingen ze allemaal naar Cuba om bij de kommunisten daar op bezoek
te gaan en ging het allemaal kut.

Daar gaan Max en Ada aan zee, zonder dat Onno met ze mee kan gaan. Ze vrijen in de oceaan. Ada vermoed dat
ze een kind zal krijgen, daarom gaat ze later stiekem naar Onno zijn hotelkamer toe om ook met hem te vrijen.
Ze raakt inderdaad zwanger. Onno is blij - hij weet nog niet dat er een kans bestaat dat hij niet de vader is.

Als Onno hem vertelt dat Ada zwanger is, snapt Max meteen wat er aan de hand is. Hij zit om een brief aan Onno
te schrijven - een brief die de waarheid onthult - maar neemt uiteindelijk een besluit om niets buiten Ada te
doen. Hij gaat op bezoek bij Ada om de ramp te bespreken. Zij is echter opgetogen over het feit dat ze straks
een kind zal krijgen. Zij is er ook van overtuigd dat ze geen andere kans zult krijgen om een kind te krijgen. Max
kan de ramp niet stoppen.

Onno kondigt aan dat hij Ada ook gaat trouwen. Op Max's verjaardag. (Nog een ramp!) Hij wilt ook dat Max
getuige is, want Max is zijn dikste vriend, maar dat gaat te ver voor Max. Daar zit ik nu, het is allemaal te gek.

Verder, je moet het goed onthouden, dit kind is alleen maar de vader of de moeder van de 'Ene' die we
verwachten. We zullen het hele leven van het kind waarschijnlijk ook volgen. Er blijft 600 pagina's. Toch te gek!


Indonesian

Yesterday I did Assimil 12. Dude, Assimil, I totally don't need to learn all of this vocabulary about sewing! I get
that it's just a vehicle for teaching me the words for "in front" and "behind" and all that, but the sewing framing
has got to stop. I am not a serf from a humble fiefdom in the 14th century, I don't make my own clothes, give it a
rest!

Other than that I'm just trying to take the pressure off and let Assimil work its magic.


French

I got my copy of Essential French Grammar in the mail the other day. Gosh, I am such a nerd.

Also did Assimil 5. Unlike Assimil Indonesian, Assimil French seems like... very practical and straightforward. But
that could just be my skewed perception because I've studied the language before.

I'm also working on my French r when I repeat after the Assimil. We were never really taught that there was a
French r in school - what a horrible oversight, right? - so I have to build it in now from scratch.

Right now my r is like a thinner version of the Dutch g that happens further forward in my mouth and I know
it sounds horribly exaggerated. But I think with time things will smooth out. Je suis excité en tout cas d'avoir la
chance de corriger l'erreur.
2 persons have voted this message useful



Hekje
Diglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 4495 days ago

842 posts - 1330 votes 
Speaks: English*, Dutch
Studies: French, Indonesian

 
 Message 410 of 568
09 December 2013 at 11:25pm | IP Logged 
Dutch

I'm on page 379 of De ontdekking van de hemel. Whoop whoop.

I also made the TAC 2014 Team Dutch thread. Man, I am so psyched
about TAC 2014 I kind of feel like I have to pee.

Funny thing - while looking for images to put in the Team Dutch thread, I stumbled across my own blog that I
kept in 2011 when I was studying in the Netherlands. It was so much fun going through my old entries. I
remember trying really hard to make them funny, and they are still... sorta funny. I chuckled.

But anyway, more relevant to this thread and language-learning and all - check out this entry from September
2011!

Me from September 2011 wrote:
In other news: school started on Tuesday! So far everything looks great. The
only problem is that, while I thought my Dutch was fairly serviceable for my purposes in August, it is definitely
not good enough to excel in actual Dutch higher education. For now I'm just listening as hard as I can and writing
down all the words I don't know.

To give you an idea of how well I'm doing, let me just say that I kept hearing this one word, "duidelijk". Over and
over again, "duidelijk", "duidelijk", "duidelijk". I looked it up. It means "obviously". So now I know they're saying
something like, "obviously... this this this", but I have absolutely no idea what's supposed to be so obvious.


Man, I remember what that feels like, and yet at the same time it seems impossible that I ever didn't know
Dutch. Language learning is so crazy.


Indonesian

Now all quiet on the... eastern front? I haven't been great about Assimil this past week. I've continued listening to
music, but sporadically.


French

I read some in Essential French Grammar and eavesdropped on some French people on the subway.

Edited by Hekje on 09 December 2013 at 11:26pm

1 person has voted this message useful



geoffw
Triglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 4480 days ago

1134 posts - 1865 votes 
Speaks: English*, German, Yiddish
Studies: Modern Hebrew, French, Dutch, Italian, Russian

 
 Message 411 of 568
10 December 2013 at 12:02am | IP Logged 
Interesting...I don't think I ever would have translated it as "obvious," and for a minute I wasn't even sure that was
correct. I would have said clear/clearly, but I'm not sure why. This is definitely a cognate from German (cf.
"deutlich"). When I looked up "duidelijk" in Google Translate, this ("clear," or "deutlich," depending on the target
language) was actually the first option, FWIW.
1 person has voted this message useful



Hekje
Diglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 4495 days ago

842 posts - 1330 votes 
Speaks: English*, Dutch
Studies: French, Indonesian

 
 Message 412 of 568
10 December 2013 at 2:20am | IP Logged 
geoffw wrote:
Interesting...I don't think I ever would have translated it as
"obvious," and for a minute I wasn't even sure that was correct. I would have said
clear/clearly, but I'm not sure why. This is definitely a cognate from German (cf.
"deutlich"). When I looked up "duidelijk" in Google Translate, this ("clear," or
"deutlich," depending on the target language) was actually the first option, FWIW.

Haha, you'll have to forgive my youthful imprecision. Now I would definitely translate
it as "clear", as duidelijk has a range of meanings and "clear" covers pretty
much all of them. But it can overlap with "obvious" as well, as in "Het is heel
duidelijk dat..." ("It's very clear/obvious that...").

The list of potential translations for duidelijk on Bab.la is
impressively long - it offers "plain", "evident",
"clear", "obvious", and "apparent".

And now I'm thinking about all the distinctions between those...

Edited by Hekje on 10 December 2013 at 2:22am

1 person has voted this message useful



geoffw
Triglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 4480 days ago

1134 posts - 1865 votes 
Speaks: English*, German, Yiddish
Studies: Modern Hebrew, French, Dutch, Italian, Russian

 
 Message 413 of 568
10 December 2013 at 2:30am | IP Logged 
"Obvious" is among the alternatives given by Google, too. Another one they give that I really liked is "manifest,"
which somehow catches the nuance that I usually associate with duidelijk/deutlich.
1 person has voted this message useful



Hekje
Diglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 4495 days ago

842 posts - 1330 votes 
Speaks: English*, Dutch
Studies: French, Indonesian

 
 Message 414 of 568
10 December 2013 at 4:59pm | IP Logged 
geoffw wrote:
"Obvious" is among the alternatives given by Google, too. Another one they give that I really liked
is "manifest," which somehow catches the nuance that I usually associate with duidelijk/deutlich.

Ha, I love it! Very biblical and grand.


Edit: General note - in anticipation of TAC 2014, I updated the first page of
this log with a little blurb about me and a short summary of my language-learning activities thus far.

Edited by Hekje on 10 December 2013 at 8:14pm

1 person has voted this message useful



Hekje
Diglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 4495 days ago

842 posts - 1330 votes 
Speaks: English*, Dutch
Studies: French, Indonesian

 
 Message 415 of 568
12 December 2013 at 4:27am | IP Logged 
Dutch

Today I had the opportunity to speak to my dad in Dutch for over a hour. I don't often speak with my father, so it
was a really pleasant surprise.

The first few minutes definitely felt a bit rusty, but within ten minutes my Dutch was up and running. We spoke
about all kinds of things - how the family is doing; a film that I've seen recently; what my new housemates are
like and all the cool things I've seen and done in New York so far, etc., etc. Since it's been so long since I've had a
good chat in Dutch, I was very pleased to see that my Dutch is still more than serviceable. There were definitely a
few word order mistakes, but I really mean only a few. I even got a compliment on my broad vocabulary.

My dad's Dutch is still great. The only funny thing was that he very often used English sentence connectors, like
"but", "too", or "you know". It was funny to hear him consistently say things like, "Ja, toen zei ik, you know, je
moet maar..."

But other than that, his Dutch is still significantly more fluent, colloquial, and grammatical than mine and
probably always will be.

On another note, I've moved forward to page 387 of De ontdekking van de hemel. Progress is a little
wimpy this week - in fact, is wimpy across all languages - but the important thing is just not to stop.


Indonesian

Assimil 13 down for the count. Today we learned the word yang, which means "which". Very handy!

I'm starting to see that - unless I Do Something - my passive abilities in Indonesian are going to far outstrip my
active abilities really really soon. Don't know how to feel about it.


French

Assimil 6. I think I'm starting to finally pick up on some of that famous Assimil humor. At least, I think I am. This
lesson goes, "I want to buy some ordinary cheese!" "We have no ordinary cheese in France, sir. Because we have
so many different kinds of cheese!" "Okay, then give me today's cheese!" "Ho ho ho!" "Ho ho ho." It seems
like Assimil humor is rather dry...

Edited by Hekje on 12 December 2013 at 7:37pm

1 person has voted this message useful



Hekje
Diglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 4495 days ago

842 posts - 1330 votes 
Speaks: English*, Dutch
Studies: French, Indonesian

 
 Message 416 of 568
13 December 2013 at 8:17pm | IP Logged 
Dutch

Evaluation of TAC 2013

So, it's that time of year. The time of year when we evaluate our efforts in the Total Annihilation Challenge.
Yippee!

In January, I made this goal:

Hekje wrote:
Dit jaar wil ik C1 bereiken. Als ik precieze inschattingen van mijn huidige vaardigheden
moest geven, zou ik wel zeggen dat ik precies op het B2-niveau zit in elk aspect van taalvaardigheid behalve
leesvaardigheid. (Dat is toch veel beter dan B2 maar heeft het volgende niveau nog niet bereikt.)


So, did I achieve it? I'll measure myself against the CEFR scale:

- "Can understand a wide range of demanding, longer texts, and recognise implicit meaning." - Yes.

- "Can express ideas fluently and spontaneously without much obvious searching for expressions." -
Depends. Mostly on what I'm talking about, and I don't know expressions for everything yet.

- "Can use language flexibly and effectively for social, academic and professional purposes." - Depends.
Social purposes I can attest to, but I haven't recently tested myself in an academic setting. I would be hard-
pressed if I needed to use Dutch for work.

- "Can produce clear, well-structured, detailed text on complex subjects, showing controlled use of
organisational patterns, connectors and cohesive devices."
- Depends. I might be on the very bottom edge of
C1 for this one.


So the evaluation is: no, I did not achieve my goal for TAC 2013. However, that wasn't really the point - the
point was to keep my Dutch alive and, hopefully, make small improvements. Which I did. My written Dutch is
more fluid now, I definitely speak way better and am more confident than I was a year ago, and my listening and
reading comprehension have vastly improved.

My dream, though, is still to reach C1 in Dutch. I feel that I dip into C1 moments from time to time, but a real,
solid C1 is far away. Mainly, I still lack the higher vocabulary that I need to sound like an educated human, and I
still make word order/preposition mistakes. Come January, my new goals for the year will probably address that.


2 persons have voted this message useful



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