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Chav’s Dutch Experiment | ||
Tags: Dutch | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Chav Diglot Groupie United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4302 days ago 43 posts - 45 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English* Studies: Dutch, Polish | Message 1 of 14 02 October 2013 at 4:43am | IP Logged |
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(Hallo! I had a log for Polish TAC (Team Zubr) but is it okay to start a new one since this is about Dutch instead and Polish is no more for me?)
So, yeah, I officially give up on Polish for the foreseeable future :( I wasn't really getting anywhere with it for some reason. However! I have a year off my Open University studies, and being unable to work at the moment I have a lot of free time. From somewhere came the question "How much Dutch could I learn by Christmas?" and so that's my new experiment. I don't have a level I'm aiming for, though it would be nice if I could manage a basic conversation by the end of it all. Part of my reason for doing this is to make myself study, so as to keep up the habit while my (Spanish and German) studies are on hold. I think if I can get into better study habits generally that would be useful enough to be worth me trying out Dutch for a while. I've been learning Dutch for just over a week now, though I'm not sure how much time I'm putting in per day as such. I feel motivated and determined, and I am also using the language as a distraction while I try to quit smoking (which is working surprisingly well). Resources so far: - Anki - Lang-8 (having to write nonsense-sentences sometimes just to be able to say something) - Colloquial Dutch - Teach Yourself Dutch - Dutch: An Essential Grammar - Essential Dutch Grammar - Harry Potter (in Nederlands, natuurlijk) I've got some more books arriving this week (hopefully), so I shall mention them as they turn up. One nice thing about Dutch is that it's surprisingly transparent since I have English and some German -- I can read a lot more than I'd expect, with some guesswork. I've started doing about a page a day of Harry Potter, which I haven't actually read in English but it being for children it seemed like a good idea for something to read. Basically I read until I have an A5 page full of new words to learn, and then I stop for the day. It's going very slowly, as you can imagine. I feel quite pleased with my progress so far, in that I've learned anything at all. I can't say much yet ("Ik heet Chav en ik ben Nederlands leren. Ik kom uit Schotland.") but we shall see how far I can get before either Christmas or getting completely stuck/giving up. I'm hoping my artifical "deadline" is going to help, since I can have trouble studying unless I have exams to deal with. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Hekje Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 4516 days ago 842 posts - 1330 votes  Speaks: English*, Dutch Studies: French, Indonesian | Message 2 of 14 02 October 2013 at 6:48am | IP Logged |
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Hi Chav,
It's always good to see someone on the forum learning Dutch! Veel succes. And hopefully update often! :-) 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Laurae Diglot Groupie Germany Joined 4851 days ago 51 posts - 67 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Dutch | Message 3 of 14 02 October 2013 at 11:47am | IP Logged |
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I started learning Dutch last month (though to be honest I've only managed 7 hours study so far :-) Still amazing how much you can achieve in such a short period of time, especially with knowledge of Englsih and German, as you've pointed out. I'm only planning to do about 10 hours 'active' study a month though, but will try to stick with it in the long term ie. 2 years, just to see where I can get. I'm also using the Routldege Colloquial course and also Living Language Dutch, as well as the Dutch 101 and Laura Speaks Dutch podcasts, with dutchgrammar.com for reference. I'll follow your log with interest :-) 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Chav Diglot Groupie United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4302 days ago 43 posts - 45 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English* Studies: Dutch, Polish | Message 4 of 14 02 October 2013 at 1:39pm | IP Logged |
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Hello again, it's me! Thanks for the encouragement etc :) I have downloaded the Laura Speaks Dutch podcasts and some DutchPod101. I haven't listened to that much yet but they seem pretty good and at the very least useful for pronunciation.
Well, this morning I got three books in the post, which I bought second-hand on Amazon such that the postage cost more than the books. One is called "Praatpaal" and it appears to be almost entirely in Dutch, but that's okay because I also got a small Hipporene dictionary. The other book is Hugo's Dutch in 3 Months. I have only glanced at them so far, but I'm sure they will help me with my studies. Yesterday I read up on some grammar and this morning I spent maybe an hour or so working from Colloquial and reading an entire page of Harry Potter with Google to translate words I couldn't guess from context. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Chav Diglot Groupie United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4302 days ago 43 posts - 45 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English* Studies: Dutch, Polish | Message 5 of 14 03 October 2013 at 2:28am | IP Logged |
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I find it hard to use Lang-8 at this stage. I'm only about ten days into learning Dutch and there isn't much I can think of that I can actually write. Still, the corrections are useful and it should help beat some noobish mistakes out of me before they become habits. I worry that I'm just repeating the same few sentences over and over, but then I also feel like I'm not stretching my abilities there -- it's so easy just to write three sentences about nothing. I'm not really sure what to write about. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4520 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 6 of 14 03 October 2013 at 4:24pm | IP Logged |
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Google Translate, dictionaries... you're writing, so you have time to think and produce.
Besides that spelling Dutch isn't so hard, it's the word order that is the big bug-bear. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Hekje Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 4516 days ago 842 posts - 1330 votes Speaks: English*, Dutch Studies: French, Indonesian | Message 7 of 14 03 October 2013 at 6:53pm | IP Logged |
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If you're afraid of repeating yourself, just learn to write what you want to write about. :-)
Sprachprofi also wrote a great list of essay topics that you might find useful for sparking ideas. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Chav Diglot Groupie United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4302 days ago 43 posts - 45 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English* Studies: Dutch, Polish | Message 8 of 14 03 October 2013 at 9:05pm | IP Logged |
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I worry too much about using words I don't know, I should just relax and use the dictionary as suggested. I mean the worst that can happen is I get it wrong.
1 person has voted this message useful |
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