Since I finished the Dutch test earlier this week, I decided to treat myself on Wednesday morning and head off to the library to pick up the first Harry Potter book (Sorcerer’s Stone) in Dutch, along with the accompanying audio version. The latter I immediately transferred to my iPhone. While I have an external CD drive to plug into my netbook, it is cumbersome at best.
This actually continues the same tradition that I still had when I lived at home with my parents – I have two or three of the Harry Potter books in Spanish as well. While my Spanish speaking skills were horrible at best, my reading skills were decent at that level. It still took about 5-7 minutes to read each page, though.
Part of the reason I seem to choose Harry Potter is because I have read the books and seen the movies in English. (Now that I am reading the first book over again in Dutch, I’m wondering if I need to brush up on what actually happens in the books. I don’t remember x y and z happening.)
The main goal of this project is to learn more vocabulary, while also hearing the spoken word. While my spoken Dutch is miles ahead of my what my Spanish was, my vocabulary and pronunciation definitely need to improve. So it is slower going then it was with the Spanish version.
One thing I have quickly learned – listen to at least a few paragraphs of Dutch before you pause the chapter to write down some vocabulary. Otherwise, you will never get into the flow of things!
I suspect this will take me the rest of the year …
Life in the Hague 
You are one awesome lady!!
I try. I just hope I don’t get bored after a week or so. Or more likely, get busy with other stuff…
Well the vocabulary improvement will likely keep you interested. And awesome.. Loads and loads of respect for learning a new language from scratch. Thou rawketh!!
That’s awesome, because I actually had the exact same idea to read Harry Potter in Dutch! I never got good enough at Dutch to actually try, but I always thought if I did I’d love to try those books first. Way to start trying! Plus, you’ll learn all sorts of useful words for magical things. 🙂
Toverstaf! That’s the word for wand, though I learned that one watching Little Kingdom, which was translated into Dutch for the Nick Jr. channel. So I am ahead already!
Thanks for the comment. You should give Dutch a try again.
Veel plezier bij het luisteren, en het lezen van Harry.