Learning Dutch

griffdaddy

Anyone here ever learned dutch? i'm going on erasmus to Amsterdam in September and i'm probably gonna take an EU intensive language course in Utrecht in August, is it difficult to pick up? the grammar looks fairly easy, shame about the pronunciation though! i know everyone there speaks excellent english, would just like to have a little bit for the craic though

julesrtc

My friends boyfriend is Dutch, i think he gives one on one lessons in cork?

ush

griffdaddy wrote:

.... i'm probably gonna take an EU intensive language course in Utrecht in August, .....

Is that the course in Zeist?

I have a sneaking suspicion that Dutch is possibly the easiest foreign language to learn, if you have English as your mother tongue.

griffdaddy

It's in the James Boswell Institut in Utrecht, not really sure whereabouts that is, i've only ever been in Amsterdam, Haarlem and Eindhoven. I'm either gonna be going there or a place just outside Amsterdam called Diemen. I've heard it's very easy to learn as well, but pronunciation borders on the ridiculous at some stages. they have this 'kghhh' sounding noise that is impossible to pronounce. English is my first language and I've always been pretty good at speaking French and Irish fluently so I'm hoping I'll pick this up easily enough!

I used to be able to speak dutch fairly fluently (25 years ago) but have forgotten almost all of it

I found it fairly easy to learn, it sits somewhere between english & german, the "kgh" sound is similar to the "chhh" sound in words like "loch".

some phrases sound almost english "dat is mijn huis" that is my house.

I found that nederlanders preferred to practice their english that help you practice dutch!

griffdaddy

how did you go about learning it in the first place? I've definitely noticed that about Dutch people, well certainly young Dutch people anyway. They seem to take a very utilitarian view of language and don't seem too interested in trying to get you to talk Dutch like say, the French would with French. I'd happily inconvenience thousands of Dutch people over the course of my stay if that's what they want, but I'd still like to know a little bit for parties and stuff!

I used a teach yourself dutch course from Lingauphone, it came with books & audio cassettes. I found it very good to get started with then I went to a local "intermediate" dutch class which enabled me to use what I had already learned.

In my experience self teach on its own has only limited success, you really need to be with other speakers (in a class or otherwise) to consolidate the learning.

I'm having that problem with Irish at the moment.

Webbach

Hoi,

één jaar geleden al, zie ik....ben je geslaagd daarmee?
already one year ago I see...how did you get on with it?