Author Archives: Niki

The theme of this lesson was synonyms (synoniemen) and vocabulary (woordenschat). The latter is a fun word, as it literally translates to word treasure.

Here were some of the words we had:

lui – je wil niks doen (lazy – you don’t want to do anything)

plezierig – iets leuk  (pleasurable – something fun)

ergernis – je vind het niet leuk (irritation, you find it not fun)

hekel – ik vind het helemaal niet leuk (hatred – you find it completely not fun)

Although this class is definitely slower than my last class, one nice thing is there is absolutely no English spoken in the class (mainly because there’s only a few people here where English is their native language!). Spoken Dutch and pronunciation are much better as well.

Another thing that was discussed was bijvoeglijk naamwoord (or adjectives). This was one thing that I did not understand for the longest time. The first thing you need to look at is whether the adjective comes before or after the noun. If it comes after, it’s pretty simple.

Het huis is groot. (The house is big.)

De auto is rood. (The car is red.)

De tafel is zwart. (The table is black.)

If the adjective comes before the noun, you usually add an e (and possibly alter the spelling a bit):

Het grote huis

De rode auto

De zwarte tafel

If you use een (or ‘a’) instead of de/het (or ‘the’) then the -e is dropped before ‘het’ words only:

Een groot huis (groot instead of grote)

Een rode auto (rode stays the same)

Een zwarte tafel (zwarte stays the same)

We also discussed the differences between words that might translate the same:

benieuwd = curious (you want information in general)

nieuwsgierig = curious (you want information over private things, a bit nosy)

Crazy vocabulary!

Note: I was not at class 6 due to the wedding (!) so there was not a blog post last week Wednesday.

Today was an interesting class as the chapter was “Sport”. We learned about a sport that is mostly in the Dutch province Friesland. The name of the sport is Fierljeppen (Wikipedia: Dutch | English). The sport originated in Friesland in the 1700s where there are lots of canals but not a lot of bridges to get across. Facing a lack of bridges in the area they used long poles to spring across.

The goal of the sport is to run towards the pole (which is already in the water) and climb up it as fast as possible while also maneuvering your body forward to reach the other side of the water. As the stick falls towards the other side you jump into the sand. The person who lands the farthest in the sand wins the competition.

And if that was not confusing enough, here is a YouTube video of it. :p

The wedding was good by the way. Afterwards we then spent a few days touring The Hague and Delft with my parents, brother, and sister-in-law. 🙂

Fourth lesson by ROC Mondriaan. I’m starting to make some stupid mistakes, which of course I find really annoying. With this type of endeavor I want to be perfect. Oh, and did I mention that the wedding vows we are telling each other will be in Dutch? Yeah, I’m crazy. But I’ll come armed with note cards! (Thankfully I have pretty understanding parents who are willing to listen and consult the translation we provide as needed…)

There were a few choices quotes from the teacher today:

Schrijven is blijven. Niet schrijven is vergeten.

Loosely translated: Writing is remembering (lit: staying). Not writing is forgetting.

Als je het niet weet, kies de.

Translated: If you don’t know it [whether to use ‘het’ or ‘de’ before nouns], choose ‘de’. 80% of Dutch nouns take ‘de’, whereas only 20% take het.

Interestingly, ‘de’ is for both masculine and feminine nouns. Back in the day there was a 3rd form for feminine nouns, but they were since consolidated into the same category as masculine. ‘het’ is actually for neutral nouns like professions, diminutives, metals, and other various things.

We then did some exercises where we switched around the word order, similar to Monday’s class:

Morgen ga ik met mijn kinderen voor het eerst naar de kinderopvang.

Tomorrow go I (:p) with my kids voor the first [time] to [the] daycare.

Ik ga morgen met mijn kinderen voor het eerst naar de kinderopvang.

I go tomorrow with my kids for the first [time[ to [the] daycare.

The main thing is that the verb stays in the first or second position… morgen ik ga is wrong as ‘ga’ is in the third position, but it’s a common mistake.

You can actually put phrases into the first position (thus, it is not limited to just one word). It mainly just changes the emphasis of the sentence.

Met mijn kinderen ga ik morgen voor het eerst naar de kinderopvang.

The subject and the verb always stick together (in simple sentences anyway). If the time element (morgen, tomorrow) is not in the first position it usually follows right after the subject, as it did in the last example.

One week to go until the wedding… Crazy times ahead!

Last night was another class by ROC Mondriaan. The good news is hopefully we figured out what classroom(s) we are going to be in permanently – one classroom for Monday and another for Wednesday. We had the same teacher as last Monday and she did not mention us having a different teacher next Monday so perhaps she is permanently our teacher for that day.

I think one of the more amusing things about this class is everyone wants to answer, even if the teacher calls on one person. They seem pretty adamant about answering.

The course itself is still a bit sluggish – it starts at 6:45 but we really didn’t begin until 7:05PM. In the end there were 15 people there, +1 for the mother who brought her 10 year old son. He was cute, quiet and respectful though. One thing he said (as we were in the family chapter…):

verliefd (in love)

verloofd (engaged)

getrouwd (married)

The main thing that we covered in the lesson was spelling for a few different instances. Amusingly, the 10 year old boy said he learned that last year when he was in groep vijf (group 5/age 9). Two rules we learned are:

If you have one vowel between two consonants for a singular noun, then in the plural you double the consonant before adding the traditional -en ending.

de bom -> de bommen (the bomb)

de kat -> de katten (the cat)

de kip -> de kippen (the chicken)

If you have two vowels between two consonants for a singular noun, then in the plural you remove one vowel.

de muur -> de muren (the wall)

het haar -> de haren (the hare)

de peer -> de peren (the pear)

Of course, there are always exceptions! Although I am a fan of grammar, it seems like I never stared at these rules too much, instead relying on memorizing and going by what ‘looks right’. But it’s interesting to have the rules somewhere in the back of my head now.

After that, we covered the word order of sentences — where do the subject and verb go in various situations — although that is old news to me.  That is thanks to the previous class and Marco’s hard work constantly saying “word order” “word order” “word order!” these last months.