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| NMW Newbie Netherlands Joined 4298 days ago 36 posts - 46 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Dutch | Message 1 of 5 15 May 2013 at 11:07pm | IP Logged |
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I'm in a pretty difficult spot at the moment, as I've completed Assimil, TY and Colloquial Dutch 1. I am more than half way through reading my first novel in Dutch and have done more than 150 hours of listening. I can have basic conversations - occasionally mixing up word order or using a wrong conjugation, etc, but my boyfriend says that I'm understandable for the most part.
Now I am at the point where progress is obviously slower, and I was wondering what the best plan would be? Keep reading? Or listening? I know that my writing and speaking are weaker than my reading and listening, and I am trying to write more, but I tend to use the same selection of words. Will reading more help my writing, or is this a case of having to spend a lot of time ensuring that my active skills catch up with my passive ones? Thanks in advance! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
 emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5343 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes  Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 2 of 5 15 May 2013 at 11:58pm | IP Logged |
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Definitely continue reading and listening. At least for me, this is the foundation on which all my active skills rest, and if I neglect it, I find it strangely hard to speak. Some ideas:
- If you haven't already done so, look for a TV series that you really like (either originally in Dutch or dubbed), and figure out a way to make it comprehensible enough that you can watch it for fun. Series are great because you can get used to the voices of the actors and the vocabulary, which will give you a temporary boost that you can eventually consolidate and transfer to other materials. If you can't find any comprehensible series at your level, look for documentaries on familiar subjects. Some of these have incredibly slow and clear speech. - Keep reading. In my case, I saw really dramatic leaps in comprehension and reading speed after a few thousand pages. There will come a day when you pick up an easy book and realize that it's almost like reading in your native tongue. Then you'll pick up a hard book with lots of metaphors and feel stupid again; life's like that. :-) Once you manage to watch TV for fun, and you find a few authors you just can't resist, your passive skills will inevitably tend to improve. And this will lay fantastic groundwork for your active skills: If you hear and understand a phrase hundreds of times, it should activate very easily (or even automatically, for some people). So even though lots of input might not help your output right away, it does more-or-less guarantee long-term progress. And if you do it right, input is both fun and self-indulgent. However, if I want to activate my speaking or writing quickly, I actually need to practice those skills. Speaking is sort of obvious: Find people and talk to them. Your brain may feel like it's melting, but push through and things will get easier after a few weeks. For writing, see my notes on using lang-8. And good luck! The intermediate levels can sometimes be frustrating, but if you keep at it, you'll definitely reach a level where you can do pretty much anything you want, even if you still do it badly. At least for me, the intermediate levels were frustrating because I couldn't even visualize how I could ever succeed. But once I crossed B2, a weird thing happened: It became perfectly obvious that I could learn to anything I wanted in French, given enough time. Now the only problem is finding time! 5 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Paco Senior Member Hong Kong Joined 4088 days ago 145 posts - 251 votes Speaks: Cantonese* | Message 3 of 5 16 May 2013 at 2:12am | IP Logged |
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The things you will want to improve are roughly of three categories, namely grammar,
vocabulary and cultural understanding. To expand your vocabulary, you may a) keep reading extensively, b) using wordlists and c) doing SRS and flashcards. You may also consider watching TV or shows as emk has mentioned, but I would recommend hunting down the transcripts as well, which you better go through to check unknown words and structures after enjoying the shows. To refine weak points in your output in the Dutch language and on grammar, you may consider a) chanting grammatical paradigms, b) working through teaching grammars and exercises and c) doing drills with FSI-type courses. You can practise writing in lang- 8, which has been mentioned by emk, who is quite experienced with that nice learning platform. You really have to experiment which are more valuable to you. I myself prefer to acquire vocabulary through reading, which is more enjoyable and efficacious to me than other methods. I first read a novel suitable to my level in one go. I then move on to read it again intensively, i.e., looking for every unknown vocabulary and structures and having them checked. As a last step, I would read aloud those things I did not know until I feel I have internalised them. To enhance production, I would combine all 3 methods mentioned. Teaching grammars teach you what is right and steer clear the wrong concepts in your head; pattern-drills consolidate the use of particular structures, which is especially valuable if you are aware of your weak points already so that you can deliberately focus on the relevant drills; and reference grammars allow understanding of the mechanism of the language. Edited by Paco on 16 May 2013 at 2:02pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4518 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 4 of 5 16 May 2013 at 10:01am | IP Logged |
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Emk, one of the great tragedies of the Dutch people is that we NEVER dub shows unless
they are for children. You can, no, you WILL have to look for original Dutch material. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| NMW Newbie Netherlands Joined 4298 days ago 36 posts - 46 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Dutch | Message 5 of 5 16 May 2013 at 1:28pm | IP Logged |
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Thanks for the replies. I guess I'm just a little impatient after seeing my original progress. Off to finish reading my novel then!
1 person has voted this message useful |
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