Narbleh - Nederlands

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Narbleh - Nederlands

Postby Narbleh » 2016-02-21, 4:03

Hallo!

I’m learning Dutch for the first time. English is my native language. I chose Dutch because I like Germanic languages, but had trouble with both Swedish and German. Swedish was very difficult to pronounce, and German’s grammar and irregular plurals drove me crazy. Dutch sounds nice and seems a bit more approachable in some ways.

For the first time, I have a study plan with specific goals over three months, instead of a vague "I wanna speak X!"

For the first month, I'll work through the 1,000 basic words on learndutch.org, and try to complete the 20 beginner lessons on Taal Thuis. Each only takes about 10 minutes apiece.
Month #1 goals are learn how to pronounce Dutch decently, conjugate verbs in the present/past, numbers, introduce myself, and some words related to my hobbies. I'm using Anki for vocab. I can devote 30 minutes a day.

If I make it through a month, my longer term goal is to be able to muddle my way through Harry Potter in Dutch and hold a 15-minute conversation with a native speaker. I'm hoping to be able to do that by the end of the 3 months. We'll see how it goes!

Right now, I can say “Hallo! Ik heet Erik. Hoe gaat het?” and that's about it!

Questions
1. I've read plural -en is often pronounced as a schwa: boek /buk/, boeken /bukə/. Is this the way I should learn to pronounce it in general?
2. Does this apply to the infinitive endings of verbs like leven?
3. Are there any highly recommended books or web resources for learning Dutch? I'm using Taal Thuis and learndutch.org at the moment to get started.

Dank!
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Re: Narbleh - Nederlands

Postby Narbleh » 2016-02-21, 23:17

Today, I am learning how to conjugate these two basic words:
zijn: ik ben, jij bent, hij/zij is, wij zijn, jullie zijn, zij zijn
hebben: ik heb, jij hebt, hij/zij heeft, wij hebben, jullie hebben, zij hebben

I am also solidifying the pronouns and conjugate regular verbs in the present tense. I’m using Duolingo’s course in addition since each “lesson” takes only a few minutes. Taal Thuis mentioned adjectives gaining an -e between articles and common nouns, and between "het" and neuter nouns: een grote man, de grote man, het goede jaar, een goed jaar.

Question
1. A common question I'm sure. I read Dutch has masculine, feminine, neuter. Yet courses only teach whether a noun is de/het. Does this mean I should only learn nouns as common or neuter? And that native speakers themselves will use "hij" for all common nouns, rather than hij/zij depending on its historical gender?
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Re: Narbleh - Nederlands

Postby Aurinĭa » 2016-02-22, 0:34

Narbleh wrote:Questions
1. I've read plural -en is often pronounced as a schwa: boek /buk/, boeken /bukə/. Is this the way I should learn to pronounce it in general?
2. Does this apply to the infinitive endings of verbs like leven?

You can choose how you pronounce plural and infinitive endings, with or without -n. Many people don't pronounce the -n, but if you choose to drop it, make sure not to lenghten the /ə/. Some people do that, and it sounds awful. If the next word starts with a vowel, do pronounce the -n.
Personally, I pronounce the -n.

Narbleh wrote:Question
1. A common question I'm sure. I read Dutch has masculine, feminine, neuter. Yet courses only teach whether a noun is de/het. Does this mean I should only learn nouns as common or neuter? And that native speakers themselves will use "hij" for all common nouns, rather than hij/zij depending on its historical gender?

A a beginner, learning whether a word gets de or het is already difficult, so I wouldn't concern myself too much with gender beyond that, if I were you. It's often not too difficult to avoid having to refer to something with the 3rd person singular pronoun, by phrasing the sentence differently or using die/dat. Native speakers also use these tricks when they're not sure about the gender. But whatever you do, please don't just refer to everything with hij. There are native speakers in the Netherlands who do so, but it is wrong and sounds very uneducated. Seriously, "the cow, he gives milk"? If you want to check the article, gender, spelling, conjugation, meaning of a word, I'd recommend checking http://woordenlijst.org/#/ and http://www.vandale.be.

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Re: Narbleh - Nederlands

Postby Narbleh » 2016-02-22, 5:31

Dank je! Dat is zeer nuttig :)
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Re: Narbleh - Nederlands

Postby Narbleh » 2016-02-22, 22:37

Today's goals:
* practice the numbers 1-20
* add 25 new words
* do lesson 4 of Taal Thuis
* do a few Duolingo segments

It had been a long time since I'd tried to seriously learn a language from scratch. I'd forgotten just how much foundation there is to lay at first! I'm also rediscovering the joy of making simple sentences for the first time :) I've found two lists of 1,000 most common Dutch words. I'm using Learn Dutch's first because it has pronunciation and helpful usage notes. I hope to get these down in 4 to 6 weeks' time. Then I'll use this other list I found to fill in the gaps: http://www.heardutchhere.net/BasicDutchPage1.html

I'm only beginning to learn the present tense of very basic words, and I haven't learned any phrasal verbs or prepositions yet aside from met. As soon as I can write more than "Ik kan geen melk drinken" and "Wij lezen boeken" I'll start writing actual Dutch in these threads :)

I'm learning basic niceties like "alles goed?" and "alstublieft" but not enough to even make small talk yet. But I have learned about 150 words so far, according to Anki. So that's something :) No questions today... yet!

I hope this is at least interesting to someone who is trying to start from scratch yet not waste time in learning!
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Re: Narbleh - Nederlands

Postby Narbleh » 2016-02-23, 4:55

Question
Is the pronoun "Het" as in "Het regent" also optionally pronounced as "ət" like when it's a definite article?
Dank je :)
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Re: Narbleh - Nederlands

Postby Car » 2016-02-23, 9:21

Hey, I haven't seen you in a while. Nice to see you again! You might want to have a look at Futurelearn's Dutch course if it starts again. I thought that was quite good.
Please correct my mistakes!

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Re: Narbleh - Nederlands

Postby Aurinĭa » 2016-02-23, 13:05

Narbleh wrote:Is the pronoun "Het" as in "Het regent" also optionally pronounced as "ət" like when it's a definite article?

Het is standard pronounced as /(h)ət/, whatever its function. Only when it's stressed, can it be pronounced differently, namely as /hɛt/.

Time to ask you a question: what kind of Dutch do you want to learn? Dutch Dutch, Belgian Dutch, or a form that is more neutral and acceptable to all native speakers?

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Re: Narbleh - Nederlands

Postby Narbleh » 2016-02-24, 17:17

Thanks!

As far as the kind of Dutch, I'm not sure yet. I'm learning whatever accent is on Duolingo. I requested the Living Language and Teach Yourself courses both from the library and will use whichever one suits me best. I assume they use the Netherlands accent, similar to how every French course teaches Parisian?

Yesterday I mostly learned some more food and animal terms on Duolingo. I began reading about the past tense on this very thorough Dutch grammar page: http://www.dutchgrammar.com/en/?n=Grammar.DutchGrammar

Today, my goal is to practice some common irregular verbs, such as gaan, zeggen, denken, slapen, schrijven, spreken. I'm also trying to do about three lessons a day on Duolingo since they're so short. Taal Thuis is proving to be a bit sparse, both in terms of information and exercises. I'll try a few more lessons before deciding to use something else.

I just have one little question but may have more later: When you say "have breakfast" in Dutch, is it eten/hebben/something else, and is it just "ontbijt" or "het ontbijt"?

Thanks!
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Re: Narbleh - Nederlands

Postby Aurinĭa » 2016-02-24, 18:30

the breakfast = het ontbijt
to have breakfast = ontbijten (past tense: ontbeet/ontbeten; hebben ontbeten)

Narbleh wrote:I assume they use the Netherlands accent, similar to how every French course teaches Parisian?

Most courses pay more attention to Dutch Dutch, yes. Unfortunately. :P I seem to remember Car complained about that some time ago, maybe she has found some resources for Belgian Dutch, if you're interested.

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Re: Narbleh - Nederlands

Postby Car » 2016-02-25, 9:59

Aurinĭa wrote:the breakfast = het ontbijt
to have breakfast = ontbijten (past tense: ontbeet/ontbeten; hebben ontbeten)

Narbleh wrote:I assume they use the Netherlands accent, similar to how every French course teaches Parisian?

Most courses pay more attention to Dutch Dutch, yes. Unfortunately. :P I seem to remember Car complained about that some time ago, maybe she has found some resources for Belgian Dutch, if you're interested.

Unfortunately not. But I was searching for resources in German anyway, so that'd be of no use to Narbleh. It seems that the number of Dutch courses in German in general has gone down over the years. Some which used to be sold a couple of years ago can only be found used (like the one I used to teach me some basics).
Please correct my mistakes!


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