known as @hacdias
Soms kom ik mensen tegen die mij vragen: hoe heb jij Nederlands geleerd? De afgelopen jaren heb ik hier vaak over mijn Nederlands leeravontuur geschreven, maar ik heb nooit een samenvatting van het hele proces opgeschreven. Het ging altijd meer over updates of mijlpalen die ik had bereikt. Dus vandaag kom ik met het hele verhaal op een rijtje.
Vandaag wil ik een paar tips en hulpmiddelen met jullie delen die mij hebben geholpen bij het leren van Nederlands. Ik heb de afgelopen jaren hard gewerkt aan mijn Nederlands, en ik heb al een tijdje geleden mijn B2-diploma gehaald. Dus ik snap dat het niet altijd makkelijk is, en ik hoop dat dit artikel nuttig kan zijn.
I always find it very interesting to learn more about languages, and features that some languages have and some don’t. For example: my partner and I just realized why I sometimes get confused and cannot locate an object when he says “it is there”.
I have never thought about this, but Portuguese does not have a single “there”, we have two “there”, depending on how far the object is from the listener and/or the speaker. If you say “aí”, it means that it is next to the listener. If you say “alí”, it means that it is neither close to the speaker, nor to the listener. Both translate to “there”.
This is what seems to be called a spatial deixis system, which is present in many languages. Germanic languages, such as English and Dutch, do not make such distinctions however. And the problem lies in my internal association between the concept of “aí” and “there”. So, when someone usually says something is “there”, I assume it is close to me and far away from them (the speaker), while it can actually be somewhere else entirely. And this comes because I’m used to have more specificity.
Maybe I should follow a linguistics course.
Vandaag heb ik de uitslag van mijn Staatsexamen Nederlands als tweede taal ontvangen en ik ben geslaagd! Ik heb officieel Nederlands niveau B2. Volgens de ERK (Europees Referentiekader) ben ik nu een “onafhankelijke taalgebruiker”.
It’s time to take an indefinite break from my Dutch language classes. I have been following Dutch courses since the end of October last year. That is almost eight months. Non stop. Well, I did stop for one to two week breaks between courses, but that was only because of the dates at which the courses started.
December is coming to an end, and with it so is 2023. In general, it’s been quite an incredible year, marking my first year post-university, which always brings a lot of changes to one’s life. Allied with living in another country, trying to learn the language, traveling, a lot has happened, and there is a lot to be grateful for.
Learning a new language is interesting. There are new words. New structures. New verbs. New adjectives. New ways of explaining things. New ways of categorising things. New ways of describing things. New ways of thinking.
Learning a new language is though. It is certainly easier for some than for others and there are countless of variables that will change your experience. For the past three years, I have been learning Dutch, which has been quite of a rollercoaster.
