Author Archives: Niki

Last night I had my 5th lesson (of 14) for Dutch level A2. This week was more review for me (versus last week when we learned about object/subject forms of “it”). There were 16 students in the class – and 4 of them walked in late enough for it to be noticeable. People also talk a bit too much at times, which makes it hard to hear the teacher or the other students.

Both of the main grammer things we covered this week were things that Marco has already drilled into my head (I can just see him saying “Word order! Word order!” over and over…and over). The first is indirect speech – repeating what someone else has said.

Marcia: Ik ga in de zomer naar mijn vakantiehuisje in Zweden.
Marcia: I go in the summer to my vacation house in Sweden.

Simone: Marcia zegt dat zij in de zomer naar haar vakantiehuisje in Zweden gaat.
Simone: Marcia says that she goes in the summer to her vacation house in Sweden.

(Notice how ‘gaat’ moves to the end. This is typical of most complex Dutch sentence – inversion of the verb.)

Of course, it’s a rule used not just in indirect speech.

Ik hoop dat mijn Nederlands goed is.
[I hope that my Dutch is good.]

The other grammatical aspect that we learned was negating “moeten” or must. That verb gave me trouble for the longest time, because I would constantly ask Marco what the verb for “to need” was. But most of the time you use “must” instead. There is a way to talk about need, though. “hebben nodig”, although the nodig doesn’t usually stick with the verb “hebben” (to have). It roughly translates to the following “to have need”.

We hebben meer tijd nodig.
We need more time. (We have need for more time.)

But when you want to negate “moeten” you instead change the verb to “hoeven”. For some reason no one in the world will ever know, I suppose.

Ik moet vandaag werken, maar morgen hoef ik niet te werken.
I must work today, but tomorrow I don’t have to work.

—

It is official that the student I mentioned last week will drop the class – she decided to wait for the easier A1 class taught in September. On my end I (and Marco) are wondering if there’s anyway to skip any more levels… especially since there will probably be a break from June to September for the next set of classes to be taught. In theory this means more time to study and practice, but you know how that goes.

Looking over the Volksuniversiteit website, it states that there are another 3 sections to go (B1, B2, and C1) before I reach the level I want. At the C1 level is when they talk about the NT2 examen, program 2. Program 1 (B2) level is for lower level jobs, and program 2 (taught at the C1 level) is for higher level jobs, which complements the Master’s degree I already have. This means that down the road I can apply for higher level jobs.

Tuesday’s class actually had an awesome moment. We had a speaking exercise where we were paired up with our buurvrouw (neighbor, female). We had to roleplay one of us being the one asking for employment (me) and the other being the receptionist from the company giving information (her). So all the groups practiced their speaking bits. I said I was looking for a preschool teacher job (peuterleidster), but that as partly because it was a vocabulary word we learned the page before.

For us, there was a section where my partner struggled a bit with what to ask – describing what would I do at the job. After a few seconds, I spoke up and just stated what I would do (play with the kids and teach them). And then the practice section was done, a bit before the rest of the students. I am not sure if the teacher noticed that, because we got called on…

So we recited our “phone conversation” to the entire class.  I was a bit nervous, as I am used to writing everything down so I don’t forget anything, but I hadn’t done that. As you know, I am definitely not one of the best speakers in the class. The nice thing during the exercise was that my partner switched it up a bit – she asked me what I could do for the job, rather than trying to describe it herself (where she got into trouble last time). So we rattled everything off…

…and after we were done a few people looked stunned and one even said “Whoa.” at what we had put together. Booyah! Niki looks smart when speaking for once.

(Of course, the teacher said it was good and then spent the next few minutes dissecting the conversation and telling us what the mistakes were. Ha.)

This time there were more students (18) than the last time (12). It seems like a handful of them were on vacation last week. It made it a bit harder for everyone to find a seat in the newly improvised “sit in a large square with our desks” seating arrangement, but it worked out. I am sure it was against fire code (people were technically blocked in on all sides), but otherwise okay.

During the break, one of the students went up to speak to the teacher. It seems that the student was finding the class a bit difficult and was hoping to go back down to level A1. The teacher told her to go to the register’s office at the front of the building and see if there was anything they could do. Unfortunately when she came back, she said that the next A1 class wasn’t until September. I am not sure what she is going to do – maybe she’ll stick around.

One of the grammar things that we learned this time was referring to an object as “it” or similar. Of course, Dutch has three variations – de, het, and plurals.

De words (most popular)

Subject form – hij

Object form – hem

* Waar is mijn brief? Waar is hij? (Where is it [my letter]?)

* Hij heeft je brief. Hij heeft hem. (He has it.)

—Yes, if you’re playing along, you’ll realize ‘hij’ is also the word for ‘he’!

Het words

Subject form – het

Object form – het

* Het paspoort ligt op de tafel. Het ligt op de tafel. (It lies on the table.)

* Heb jij mijn paspoort? Heb jij het? (Do you have it?)

Plurals

Subject form – ze

Object form – ze

* Mijn pasfoto’s zijn niet goed. Ze zijn niet goed. (They [passport photos] are not good.)

* Ik vind mijn pasfoto’s niet leuk. Ik vind ze niet leuk. (I don’t like them.)

Last night was the third Dutch lesson. I still have a pretty big fear of opening my mouth and actually talking Dutch (unless you’re a friend/family member) so it makes it interesting. As usual, I did my routine of finishing the homework before actually attending the class – it helps me pay attention a bit better.

Of course, it’s still possible to:

1. Not be paying attention when called on. Twice the teacher asked me a question or to do something, and both times I was distracted by an upcoming grammar section. (What can I say? I love grammar and rules.) But, how embarrassing!

It’s interesting – you never realize how much you can multitask and still listen to your native language, because things are stored in your short term memory. I was walking on the street. Since I am not yet fluent in Dutch, I still subconsciously tune out  language and ignore conversations around me. But I passed two women who ended up speaking in English. It was only after a few seconds and their sentence was half done that my brain realized it was English. So it automatically went back and replayed what it heard so I could know what they were saying.

But that isn’t possible yet in Dutch – the language doesn’t make enough sense to stick in my short term memory, and thus if I am not concentrating on listening I can’t go back and re-hear what was said.

2. It’s also possible to make a mistake on the one sentence you are called on to answer, even if you have the other 9 sentences correct. (The present perfect participle for komen [to come] is gekomen, not gekwam.) I mixed it up the with the straight past tense conjugation, which for the ‘I’ form is gekwam. Opps.

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