Welcome back, it’s Toni again and I have officially completed my first month of lessons. Now it wasn’t easy, but I can already see a huge improvement, and whilst I still can’t hold a conversation in Dutch, I can now start one, which is significantly better than when I started.
The first month flew by
I have classes every Friday morning with my teacher, Debbie, and just one other student, Pea. This allows the teacher to really concentrate on the parts we need to exercise the most, and it makes everything much easier to understand. In every class, we have a different topic through which we learn grammar, learn new vocabulary, and practice our pronunciation. We have a revision at the start of each class where we speak as much as we can in Dutch, so already after a month, I can see great improvements in my understanding and speaking of Dutch.
I also like to practice by writing different words (nouns, verbs, pronouns, etc.) on Post-it notes and pinning them up on a board. Then every day, I try to say things I can do in as many different combinations, conjugations, and tenses as I can. You should give it a try; believe me it helps.
"Hoe gaat het?“
In our classes, we started the journey with common questions like “Wie ben jij?“ and “Hoe gaat het?“. I was very enthusiastic because I knew the answers immediately (let’s pretend I didn’t spend an hour beforehand practicing them), and we spent some time giving different responses. My colleague Pea did really great and, honestly, already sounded like a true dutchie! I still sometimes sound like a cat trying to cough up a fur ball (but I’m trying okay). When the question “Wat studeer je?“ came up, I wanted to hide because the name of my study is extremely long. I study Molecular Life Sciences, or in Dutch, Moleculaire Levenswetenschappen. That’s two words (one of which is a compound!) and 11 syllables. Luckily, after a few tries, it became really fun to pronounce!
Just me and my notebook
Then we talked about our hobbies and about the things we like to do, so I shared that I play the guitar and that I like to cook. This was a really fun class because we learned a lot about each other. I remembered how in elementary school, we had little personal vocabulary notebooks (are those a thing in the Netherlands?) that would fit in your pocket, and we had to write all the new words that we learned in English or German. I never used them then, but one would come in really handy right about now; these new words just keep coming! I recommend getting your hand one of these too.
I have always viewed Dutch as one of those languages where you trade a little bit of your sanity to learn a new phrase (like German), but now I realize it’s not impossible; actually, it’s very doable. There are many words that are similar to English, and after you practice a little bit, it becomes increasingly fun! Check out this video, it helped me practice the basics: Learn Dutch in 30 Minutes – ALL the Basics You Need
So without further ado, I officially call this Dutch learning season open, and I invite you to tune in to our future updates! Pea and I, together with ISW, will do our best to show this fun journey of learning Dutch in the Netherlands, and we hope more people will realize it is nothing to be scared about! Grab your seats, stroop your waffles and stay turned for the next installment of #JustDutchIt
