Unilang Language Learning Month - Dutch

[Kyr]

Dag allemaal! Mag ik me even voorstellen? Ik ben Judith Meyer. Ik ben 21 jaar oud. Ik kom uit Kamp-Lintfort. Dat is een leuke stad in Duitsland. Ik studeer Franse taal- en letterkunde aan de universiteit van Duisburg. Ik studeer ook bedrijfskunde en "computational linguistics". En ik studeer Nederlandse taal thuis [En thuis studeer ik Nederlands], 6 dagen pas. Ik begrijp Nederlands heel goed, maar ik kan het nog niet schrijven.
Hebben jullie broers of zussen? Ik heb één broer, maar ik heb geen zusje. Mijn broer is 18 jaar oud. Hij heet Jens en hij zit nog op school. Mijn ouders heten Georg en Ursula.

I guess it is:

"Good morning to all of you! Can I present myself? I am Judith Meyer. I am 21 years old. I come from Kamp Linfort. This is a pretty town in Germany. I study French philology and literature at the university of Duisburg. I study also “bedrijfskunde” (management?) and "computational linguistics’”. And I have been studying Dutch since 6 days at home. I understand Dutch very well, but I cannot write it yet.
Do you have any brothers or sisters? I have a brother, but I have no sister. My brother is 18 years old. His name is Jens and he is still at school. My parents’ names are Georg and Ursula."

Is that correct?

[Kyr]

Some useful links:

http://www.alphadictionary.com/director ... nic/Dutch/

[Junesun]

Phreaker, I can send you the Dutch-English file by e-mail if you want, just tell me your e-mail address (by pm if you prefer).

Dor&Da: Thank you very much for your correction.
Could you perhaps record the first text of lesson 1 as slow as you can possibly read it? It's an introduction, so I think even those not following this course should find useful words in it - and the word "huis" appears in it, too, so that pronunciation question would be solved at the same time. The direct link to the text is: http://www.ned.univie.ac.at/non/welkom/texte/1oe1.htm

[dorenda]

Lopen. Ik loop op straat, hij loopt niet op straat.
Drogen. Ik droog, zij droogt.... Mokken. Ik mok. Jij mokt. Zij mokken. Ja?

mo-ken - 'mo' is an open syllable, which makes the vowel long. To make it short, add a k, so the syllable is closed: mok-ken.

Hello to all of you! Can I present myself? I am Judith Meyer. I am 21 years old. I come from Kamp Linfort. This is a nice town in Germany. I study French philology and literature at the university of Duisburg. I study also business studies and "computational linguistics’”. And I have been studying Dutch since only 6 days at home. I understand Dutch very well, but I cannot write it yet.
Do you have any brothers or sisters? I have one brother, but I have no sister. My brother is 18 years old. His name is Jens and he is still at school. My parents’ names are Georg and Ursula.

Just a few details, no serious mistakes.

[dorenda]

Here is my recording of the text. Hope this is slow enough.

[Kazimer]

Thanks Junesun! My e-mail is ddby07@gmail.com.

I have a problem. I understand what you must do to a verb with adding a vowel or consonant depending on the stem vowel, but I still don't get how to tell whether it is short or long. So, you see I know the endings I just can't deal with the stem correctly. Any tips for remembering how to would be great.
Thanx is advance

Also, if anybody wants an invite for gmail (google's e-mail service), send me an e-mail to the address above. The storage limit is now well over 2gb's.

[Saaropean]

Look at the infinitive, since that's the form given in dictionaries. There are three cases:
1) vowel + N (but the vowel is not a single E) long vowel, e.g. "gaan" /xa:n/
2) single consonant + EN long vowel, e.g. "kopen" /ko:p@(n)/
3) more than one consonant + EN short vowel, e.g. "bakken" /bak@(n)/

[Car]

Look at the infinitive, since that's the form given in dictionaries. There are three cases:
1) vowel + N (but the vowel is not a single E) long vowel, e.g. "gaan" /xa:n/
2) single consonant + EN long vowel, e.g. "kopen" /ko:p@(n)/
3) more than one consonant + EN short vowel, e.g. "bakken" /bak@(n)/

IIRC, the method to use is to split it into syllables to know how to pronounce it. If there's just a vowel at the end of it, it's long, if a consonant follows after the vowel, it's short, I think. So in order to have a long vowel when you have a consonant following, you need to double it.

[Kazimer]

Hello to all of you! Can I present myself? I am Judith Meyer. I am 21 years old. I come from Kamp Linfort. This is a nice town in Germany. I study French philology and literature at the university of Duisburg. I study also business studies and "computational linguistics’”. And I have been studying Dutch since only 6 days at home. I understand Dutch very well, but I cannot write it yet.
Do you have any brothers or sisters? I have one brother, but I have no sister. My brother is 18 years old. His name is Jens and he is still at school. My parents’ names are Georg and Ursula.

Just a few details, no serious mistakes.

Kyr you did a good job translating and dor&da a good job correcting it, but still there are a few ways of making it better in English (American Eng.). Also, I hope I don't offend anyone by doing this because I don't know what dialect you are studying.

Here's how I'd have said it (but w/o the *):

Hello everybody!* Let me present myself. I am Judit h Meyer, I am 21 years old and live in Kamp Linfort.** It is a nice town in Germany. I study French philogy and literature at the University of Duisburg. I also take business studies and computational linguistics.*** And, I have been studying for only six days at home.**** I understand Dutch very well, but cannot write it yet.*****
Do you have any brothers or sisters? I have a brother, but no sisters.****** He is 18. His name is Jens and is still in school.******* My parents' names are Georg and Ursula.

* to all of you can be replace with one word everybody
** combining all three sentences into one makes the paragraph flow better, also a comma may be added after old (but it's optional in this situation)
*** using the verb to take is idiomatic but is better choice because studies is a noun dervived from the verb to study and it doesn't sound as choppy and the word also comes before or after the sentence or after the subject
**** in this case for is a better choice because since refers more to a specific date
***** I doesn't need to be repeated because both verbs have the same subject
****** a is better than one because that is her only sibling it would be different if say she had two sisters and one brother, also, negated nouns are usually in the plural and same as before the subject is the same as well as the verb so no need to repeat it
******* use in as opposed to at using at makes it sound like he is at school (at this very moment) doing work or some after school activity

Good job both of you, but let's get back to learning Dutch not working on our English. Thanks for taking time to read this too. Hope it'll help....

[Kazimer]

I think there is an error in the gap exercise zijn en hebben. It says "en heb jij ...?" Shouldn't it be hebt?

[Patricia]

I think there is an error in the gap exercise zijn en hebben. It says "en heb jij ...?" Shouldn't it be hebt?

AFIK, the "t" is usually dropped when the verb goes in front of the personal pronoun.

[billathon]

I'm pretty sure every time I hear Dutch spoken I want to work harder to learn it. Everyone says it's so ugly but to me it's really fascinating. I just know what I've learned this first week, so there are still lots of gaps [like, oh, let's say... negatives and other really important things that I should know by now].

Ik leer het Nederlands omdat Juli is hier en ik wilde nieuwe dingen proberen. Ik bestudeer de werkwoorden maar....

Ok, harder than it looks. But this is probably my favorite language right now. No, it definitely is.

[Junesun]

I think there is an error in the gap exercise zijn en hebben. It says "en heb jij ...?" Shouldn't it be hebt?

AFIK, the "t" is usually dropped when the verb goes in front of the personal pronoun.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that just applies to "jij" and "je". If the subject "jij" or "je" stands after the verb (e. g. in a question), the verb drops the -t.

[Junesun]

Here is my recording of the text. Hope this is slow enough.

Thank you very much! It's great, it really allows me to discern all of those special Dutch sounds, especially the pesky vowel combinations.

[Kyr]

Thanks a lot dor&da and phreaker. I appreciate your help a lot.

[dorenda]

IIRC, the method to use is to split it into syllables to know how to pronounce it. If there's just a vowel at the end of it, it's long, if a consonant follows after the vowel, it's short, I think. So in order to have a long vowel when you have a consonant following, you need to double it.

(The last 'it' refers to the vowel, just to make sure nobody minunderstands it.)
And this not only works for verbs, but also in all other instances, for example when making plurals in -en of nouns!

Kyr you did a good job translating and dor&da a good job correcting it, but still there are a few ways of making it better in English (American Eng.). Also, I hope I don't offend anyone by doing this because I don't know what dialect you are studying.

I don't think you offend anyone by doing this. I just didn't pay attention to the grammatical correctness of the text, I only made sure that it's clear from the translation what the Dutch text means.

Ik leer [s]het[/s] Nederlands omdat het juli is hier en ik wilde nieuwe dingen proberen*. Ik bestudeer de werkwoorden maar....

* If 'en ik wilde nieuwe dingen proberen' is part of the reason why you're learning Dutch (I guess it is) the word order should be different: (omdat) 'ik nieuwe dingen wilde proberen'.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that just applies to "jij" and "je". If the subject "jij" or "je" stands after the verb (e. g. in a question), the verb drops the -t.

You're right.

[Meowth]

it's shame i can't follow with my dutch lessons since i'm going to travel next wednesday

anyway, i do hope ULALEMO will be back later very good luck with dutch course !

[skye]

I've started the course at speakdutch.nl and I have some questions:

1. het huis - de huizen: does the final -s always change into z in plural?

2. it says that the personal pronouns jij, wij and zij are used when the pronoun is stressed. What does that mean "stressed"? Is it only when you decide to emphasize a word or are there some rules?

3. Does the 3rd person singular zij (she) also have the unstressed pronoun ze?

4. It says that je (jij) and jullie are informal. SO when exactly do Dutch speakers use these words - in which situations? When is it better to say u?

5. Possessive pronouns:

is je the possessive pronoun for je and
jouw for jij?

[skye]

Oh, and some words in the Before You Know It software are spelt different than at speakdutch.nl

goede morgen - goedemorgen

goede avond - goedenavond

goede nacht - goedenacht

Which is correct? Or doesn't it matter?

[Saaropean]

I've started the course at speakdutch.nl and I have some questions:

1. het huis - de huizen: does the final -s always change into z in plural?

Phonemically it's /z/, but word-finally all consonants become voiceless. That's why the plural uses [s] instead of [z].

2. it says that the personal pronouns jij, wij and zij are used when the pronoun is stressed. What does that mean "stressed"? Is it only when you decide to emphasize a word or are there some rules?

It's like the difference between "D'ya know" or "Do you know" (stressed on the verb) and "Do YOU know" in English. The first one uses an unstressed pronoun.

I'm not so sure about the other questions.