My husband and I are planning to relocate to the Netherlands, at the behest of extensive family who live there and welcome us, and well, I loved it there. ( Bemmel/Nijmegen
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My grandma has been fantastic with my pronunciation and yes, immersion would be ideal. I picked it up fast there, just the basics, but then I've heard dutch and dutch accents all my life too.
My husband struggles much more with pronunciation, I don't. ( unless the speaker on my podcasts mumbles and then I'm quite lost with v/w sounds!)
You sound like me: here for 16 months with an Italian partner, and still a long way to go before I get by without English. That said, I do love it here; I just wish the language was easier. ;)
Even when I speak Dutch store owners reply in English. It is devastating to the confidence. I could speak Dutch to friends and they would reply in Dutch but I am so embarrassed and think I am doing everything wrong because of all those experiences.
Dutch is not a language that can be learned effectively through immersion if you speak English because the country is essentially bi-lingual. Unless of course you are very very confident and you are capable of pretending you don't speak English. Then I think you could do it lol But for me, I am not and it shakes my confidence and then I switch to English also.
I've used Rosetta but didn't ultimately like it. It's good for some simple words, but it's not worth the cost, imo. Plus, the damn thing put me to sleep every time I tried to use it. ;)
There are a ton of websites to help you learn 2bdutch (http://www.2bdutch.nl/) has a lot of links and suggestions, including some videos that might be helpful.
I second the tip about watching things with Dutch subtitles - I think thats how I picked up a lot of my Dutch. You may also want to try listening to Dutch radio online (for example radio538.nl or radio1.nl) but the actual music may not be to your taste :P
My girlfriend is Dutch and I am American. Thankfully, she speaks English very well. However, I find that you need to learn Dutch, even if it is just to be polite in their country. It is useful in the smaller places where English is not as readily spoken.
Immersion seems to be the thing that helps me the most. You will be surprised how much you pick up just on a daily basis in the grocery market or by watching TV or by seeing signs and the like.
If I watch Dutch films at home here, I am surprised how much I remember without seeing the subtitles.
Another thing that helped me was children's picture books. Just to learn basic words. My girlfriend bought me a few and mailed them to me before my first visit...and it was fun to learn the words with her coaching over Skype. :)
Oh, and Dutch TV shows Sesame Street in Dutch...I found that helped too.
We found torchwood subtitled in dutch and that's a help. even if it sometimes flies by too fast on the screen, I can sometimes understand it when it's slower.
I'm Emily and I live in Haarlem, The Netherlands. I can give some tips if you want. I'm a teacher too. Dutch is a hard language I think. Our grammar is ridiculous. He should practise on his G. Which is really hard to pronounce for you guys. Practise on words like: Goedemorgen (goodmorning), goedemiddag (good afternoon) Goede avond (good night) Hoe gaat het met u? (How are you?) You should try to watch childrens shows that you can see in dutch and in english. Like Pippi Langstocking -> Pippi Langkous! :)
I've found the Michel Thomas Dutch audio course to be extremely beneficial. The method is such that they don't expect you to do homework or practice, that you should learn the material after doing the lesson and the way they do it (lots of repetition) it really does it that way. However it does not teach very much vocabulary. I went for my testing and I was at an A2 level for grammar understanding and yet I can not talk to people on the street because I have no idea what they are saying. So I would say before coming here if you can do the Michel Thomas course, you will be quite far ahead. After that it is just vocabulary which is different for everyone (for me flashcards work for that).
I've been working with the taalklas.nl site and that's a help. Lots of flashcards, podcasts, working thru a written grammar.
my husband has found some online sources of dutch subtitled stuff he's starting to get into, and I try to feed him some vocab and lessons as I can.( mostly translating ridiculous sentences like "my hovercraft is full of eels".
I'll be staying with my Oma in canada for a week in dec so she'll be working with me on the spoken stuff. Mostly I'm finding it fairly easy. ( but she's always spoken it mixed with english around us.)
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My husband struggles much more with pronunciation, I don't. ( unless the speaker on my podcasts mumbles and then I'm quite lost with v/w sounds!)
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Dutch is not a language that can be learned effectively through immersion if you speak English because the country is essentially bi-lingual. Unless of course you are very very confident and you are capable of pretending you don't speak English. Then I think you could do it lol But for me, I am not and it shakes my confidence and then I switch to English also.
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Rosetta Stone seems great but it's just so expensive. Byki (http://www.byki.com/) is a free program but I haven't found it very easy to use.
Good luck and best wishes on your relocation!
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Thanks for the links,I'll go digging thru them.
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I picked up this book/CD set before moving and while I didn't use it a lot, I think it tends to give you more common, everyday stuff that he might come up against, at least for a start. http://www.amazon.com/Teach-Yourself-Complete-Course-Package/dp/0071413863/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1255358610&sr=8-2
There are a ton of websites to help you learn 2bdutch (http://www.2bdutch.nl/) has a lot of links and suggestions, including some videos that might be helpful.
Succes!
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You may also want to try listening to Dutch radio online (for example radio538.nl or radio1.nl) but the actual music may not be to your taste :P
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Immersion seems to be the thing that helps me the most. You will be surprised how much you pick up just on a daily basis in the grocery market or by watching TV or by seeing signs and the like.
If I watch Dutch films at home here, I am surprised how much I remember without seeing the subtitles.
Another thing that helped me was children's picture books. Just to learn basic words. My girlfriend bought me a few and mailed them to me before my first visit...and it was fun to learn the words with her coaching over Skype. :)
Oh, and Dutch TV shows Sesame Street in Dutch...I found that helped too.
Jake
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I'm Emily and I live in Haarlem, The Netherlands. I can give some tips if you want.
I'm a teacher too. Dutch is a hard language I think. Our grammar is ridiculous.
He should practise on his G. Which is really hard to pronounce for you guys.
Practise on words like: Goedemorgen (goodmorning), goedemiddag (good afternoon) Goede avond (good night) Hoe gaat het met u? (How are you?)
You should try to watch childrens shows that you can see in dutch and in english. Like Pippi Langstocking -> Pippi Langkous! :)
Ik wens je veel succes. Nederland is geweldig.
Reply
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my husband has found some online sources of dutch subtitled stuff he's starting to get into, and I try to feed him some vocab and lessons as I can.( mostly translating ridiculous sentences like "my hovercraft is full of eels".
I'll be staying with my Oma in canada for a week in dec so she'll be working with me on the spoken stuff. Mostly I'm finding it fairly easy. ( but she's always spoken it mixed with english around us.)
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