Can you speak Dutch?
Jul 10th 2008, 1:26 am
#46
Just Joined
Joined: Jul 2008
Posts: 1
Nederlands leren
Hi there everybody,
My name is James Harris and I am a 25 year old studying in Freiburg, South Germany. Due to longstanding interest and a famililal connection, I've recently been taking beginner's classes in Dutch.
I'd like to put down the assertion which has been made by a few of you that German and Dutch grammar are similar. At least in the High German form which is taught to foreigners, German is a much more complicated language, replete with cases which Dutch has lost over its history. What is similar is Dutch and German sentence order (syntax), particularly in relative clauses. Dutch is, at a first glance, just about equivalent to the state of Middle English grammar, with only partial adjective declination ('de de jonge meisjes'). In the vocabulary have words like 'je' (Middle English 'ye') and 'dus' (antiquated English 'thus' in there). I would imagine it is easier to learn Dutch from German than the other way around, and I hope that's borne out in my case.
Anyway, I'm really pleased some of you have been successful in your attempts to learn Dutch, and hopefully I can also one day gain some fluency too, as I love the low countries and would like to spend some time there. My experience in Germany is that people will speak German with you, even compliment you on it, but you have to reach a very good level first. Unfortunately, the level of English skills in Germany is nowhere near as good as in Holland, so it is really annoying being put upon for English practise here. I hope that countries like the Netherlands with smaller languages - although het Nederlands is actually surprisingly widely spoken - start doing more to promote their languages, and encourage people to learn them, even those from the Anglophone world. It should after all be one of the easiest languages for us all to learn!
Veel succes met Nederlands leren!
Groetjes,
James
My name is James Harris and I am a 25 year old studying in Freiburg, South Germany. Due to longstanding interest and a famililal connection, I've recently been taking beginner's classes in Dutch.
I'd like to put down the assertion which has been made by a few of you that German and Dutch grammar are similar. At least in the High German form which is taught to foreigners, German is a much more complicated language, replete with cases which Dutch has lost over its history. What is similar is Dutch and German sentence order (syntax), particularly in relative clauses. Dutch is, at a first glance, just about equivalent to the state of Middle English grammar, with only partial adjective declination ('de de jonge meisjes'). In the vocabulary have words like 'je' (Middle English 'ye') and 'dus' (antiquated English 'thus' in there). I would imagine it is easier to learn Dutch from German than the other way around, and I hope that's borne out in my case.
Anyway, I'm really pleased some of you have been successful in your attempts to learn Dutch, and hopefully I can also one day gain some fluency too, as I love the low countries and would like to spend some time there. My experience in Germany is that people will speak German with you, even compliment you on it, but you have to reach a very good level first. Unfortunately, the level of English skills in Germany is nowhere near as good as in Holland, so it is really annoying being put upon for English practise here. I hope that countries like the Netherlands with smaller languages - although het Nederlands is actually surprisingly widely spoken - start doing more to promote their languages, and encourage people to learn them, even those from the Anglophone world. It should after all be one of the easiest languages for us all to learn!
Veel succes met Nederlands leren!
Groetjes,
James
Last edited by jamesbharris2; Jul 10th 2008 at 1:29 am.
Jul 10th 2008, 7:53 am
#47
Forum Regular
Joined: Jun 2008
Location: Eindhoven
Posts: 83
Re: Nederlands leren
When we came to Holland my wife (who was a fluent German speaker) learned Dutch in a class of German ladies. She picked up Dutch in no time as there is so much similarity between the two languages.
