Trellum

@sillylucy   I think those two are two different languages.  I'm not familiar with the language the Amish speak, but it sounds a lot like German.  As far as I know the way words are spelled and pronounced is so different from Dutch.   Similar to the language spoken by the Mennonites here,  I think both of those people use a language closer related to German, but I am no expert.  

@anna3101   The most weird thing happened when I was a member of that site (I no longer log in there because... bleh, lol)  is that most, if not all of the people who contacted me were natives D: I wanted so desperately to find a learner, specially a girl in a similar situation to mine, but no luck! I did find a man who was also a learner,  he wanted to practice Spanish, but spoke Dutch so well!  He has been the best so far.

 By the way, the other learners who added me didn't pass from the first message, no idea why   Sometimes I think I wasn't effusive enough? When that kind of things happen you can't help but to wonder.  Those sites are tricky :/  I think very few of those people are truly interested in languages  

8 hours ago, KimmyMarkks said:

Wow Dutch is a difficult language to learn.  Good for you!  Yeah I definitely struggle with this the most.  I have no problem reading a foreign language I just for some reason can't memorize how to pronounce it! 

You think so?  I've been learning it for one year (not seriously thought), only started to study it more seriously recently (one month).  At first I got kinda scared wen I noticed the fact the second verb always is at the end and other weird rules regarding to word order.  Word order was and still is my biggest problem, but I think I'm starting to get it   I have no choice really. 

Oh no!  Best of luck with that!   Actually yes, I needed that test in order to get my residence and work permit.  And by the way, guess what?  I passed!!!! I got the results just today and I passed!!!  I am so surprised, and I didn't do as bad as I thought I had done    I might post my results later!!!  Excited!!!!!!!

Don't wrry, I am sure you will pass that test.  I gather that you have been living in Poland for a while, and since you said you are using a Dutch course in Polish, then I am really guessing your Polish is much better than my Dutch    By the way, what's the level you need to pass that exam?   

14 hours ago, anna3101 said:

I'll be happy to practise Spanish with you. You'll have a chance to laugh at my mistakes I'm not sure about my level. I can read and understand much more than I can write and talk, so probably I have a different level for each skill.

As for the places I lived in - I was born in Ukraine, but my family moved to Russia when I was little. We lived in Siberia for many years and then I spent 7 years living in Moscow. I've heard Russian is difficult to learn but then again, that's what they said to me about other languages too If you ever have any questions, I'll be glad to help you out.

Hehehe, my Dutch is not that good either   I first want to completely dominate this language, so I have a better chance to get a good job in the Netherlands, according to the inburgering video knowing Dutch well can open a lot doors, well, we will see   Right now I know for sure my reading and speaking are just A1. By the way, we can practice Spanish whenever you like, I'm always open to any kind of questions... I like to believe I am good at explaining myself well, lol. 

13 hours ago, anna3101 said:

Muchas gracias para tu gentileza y las canciones! Me gustan!

Es bastante dificil decir cuanto tiempo estoy estudiando espanol porque siempre hago pausas. Estudio durante algunos meses, pues no hago nada durante un ano Son muy perezosa pero he apredido de vivir con esto. Ya no me reprocho a mi mismo por no estar una persona diligente. Studio cuando puedo y quiero hacerlo. Estos dias, trato de aprender espanol cado domingo. Tengo un manual de estudio que me gusta mucho. Es destinado para jovenes, e yo soy joven de corazon

Bien por ti chica!  De hecho lo escribes muy bien   Que nivel dirias que posees?     Mira que te soy sincera,  estoy muy sorprendida con tu nivel porque mencionas que no estudias seguido (como yo, jajajajaja!).  Me muero de curiosidad, amiga... ¿cuánto llevas estudiando español????  En fin, encontré muy poquitos errores en tu mensaje (realmente minimos, ya quisieran muchos amigos que han estado estudiando español por años tener tu nivel de espaoñ). En fin, corregi por ti los pocos errores que encontré: 

''Muchas gracias para tu gentileza y las canciones! Me gustan!

Es bastante dificil decir cuanto tiempo estoy estudiando español porque siempre hago pausas. Estudio durante algunos meses, pues no hago nada durante un año Soy muy perezosa pero he apredido de vivir con eso. Ya no me reprocho a mi misma por no ser una persona diligente. Estudio cuando puedo y quiero hacerlo. Estos dias, trato de aprender espanol cado domingo. Tengo un manual de estudio que me gusta mucho. Es destinado para jovenes, y yo soy joven de corazon  ''

On 12/6/2015, 1:49:31, KimmyMarkks said:

I have one of the hardest time with pronunciation.  I need to hear a word several times before I am able to pronounce it correctly.  I believe this is why I have a hard time with online language study guides.  I need to have someone help correction me when I need it. 

I also have a hard time learning a language by simply studying or reading it.  I find the easiest way for me is to engage in conversation and get corrected.   

Hahaha, same here!  Sometimes  a word is harder to pronounce than others, so I need to listen to it several times.   Sometimes I need to review a word several times before I memorize it, this is the case now that I am learning Dutch   I believe that working on my own Memrise course is helping me though, because I am adding the auio myself, and I often have to repeat the same word over and over while the recording process, I do so until I get it right and then I proceed to upload it on the site. 

Whenever I am not sure about the pronunciation of certain words I use this site: http://forvo.com/languages/nl/    Other languages are available as well.  While creating my Memrise course this site has helped me enormously to find the pronunciation of words that  are unknown to me   I love it!     I don't know what I'd do without it. 

5 hours ago, OmniHead said:

As a Spanish native speaker too, I totally agree with Trellum about Duolingo. Personally if found Spanishdict to be a better option over it.

In fact I would go farther saying that WordReference, Reverso and SpanishCentral are many times better than Duolingo.

Another resource I use whether for English, Spanish or else is linguee.com, which can return the translation for a phrase you are familiar with in your own language, but in the different possible ways it is found on real online examples.

What about Memrise?   I know a lot people find it tedious to create their own word lists, but they ignore that doing that actually helps them learn said words even faster.  I know it did help me, but it requires constant work   I'd never go back to Duolingo to ''learn'' a language ever... total waste of time.  Maybe if they used phrases that were more useful, and made more sense (maybe some context wouldn't hurt)  Duolingo wouldn't be so bad. 

Awww, thanks for sharing, Anna   I love Belgian accent even more than Dutch one, the Dutch one sound so rough, but the Belgian is so nice   Wish I was moving to Belgium instead of the Netherlands, I think it would be easier for me to understand  people better over there, as well as pronouncing words better.  I've some trouble with some words that carry the ''ng'' combo, lol.   A friend of mine is Belgian, by the way, I might surprise him the next time we talk   I bet he doesn't expect me to talk Dutch to him! 

Hi guys, just two weeks ago I had to take the Basis Examen Inburgering. I haven't gotten the results yet, but I am confident I passed ''Leesvaardigheid A1'' and ''KNS'', but not so sure about ''Spreekvaardigheid A1''.   It was such a long day for me, I couldn't sleep the previous night and I was in a different city I didn't even know (I had never been there and that place is so damn huge! I was scared actually!).  They delayed the exam a little too much, they had already told me it'd be 30 minutes later, but it ended up being a whole hour. 

I was very upset about the fact that they used words that weren't in the course sold by the Dutch government to those wanting to take this exam, the ''Naar Nederland'' course. Not at all.  I was lucky I came across this site: https://basisexameninburgering.nl/lessen    There I learnt a lot new words (still learning actually).  I thought it was so shady of them.  I actually plan to write to DUO to let them know what I think, but I will wait until I get my exam results  

If you plan to take this exam... get ready to find and hear words that weren't  even in the course.  You must learn as many words as possible  so they don't shock you with strange words you don't even know.  Try to learn the basics, like for example the names of foods, fruits, vegetables, clothes, body parts, places vocab, music, professions, weather, etc.  Also be aware that during the Spreekvaardigheid you might be asked about topics that were never covered in the book, so be wary of that. 

And yes, check out the practice exam at the official Naar Nederland site, if you are lucky you will get the same questions (valid only for Spreekvaardigheid) during the real exam, but it's really about look, because they have at least 6 different combos for each exam.  The guy picks them randomly, some harder than others. 

Anybody here has taken this test? What did you think of it?   Did you pass it the first time or had to take it a second time?  Please share your experiences, I am looking forward to hearing them! 

Oh my good, same here, @anna3101 !!!  Well, I got contacted later on by more people on that site... a loooot, but you know what is the funny thing about it?  When I was finally contacted by someone... I sent a message to them there, some of them took ages to log back in and when they finally did they never replied   Some added me to their friend list, but never ever spoke to me, sometimes we'd hit it off and exchange a couple of message and suddenly they'd no longer log into the site.  Some Dutch people expected me to teach them Spanish!  I'd never ask anyone to teach me Dutch from scratch... not even my own fiance!  

A girl said she'd prepare lessons for me,  I didn't want that, plus I haven't created lessons in a long time, and I could never accept such a deal unless I was ready to do the same. I was  teacher and to be honest disliked it, not sure I'd do it even if I was paid.  I just don't like to teach...   I have no problems if they ask me to translate whole phrases, or ask me grammar questions.  I'm a very trustworthy person and it's always good to have a language exchange buddy who is like that. My fiance is not very helpful when it comes to Dutch grammar   Hence I needed language exchange buddies.  I guess I should just get a good dutch grammar book, lol. 

Interesting    I had heard about the similarities of both languages before, but I had never read a dialogue in Afrikaans.  So interesting!  I understood almost everything, even though the use of certain words didn't make that much sense to me tho, like for example the use of ''dit'' instead of ''het'' and ''gaan'' instead of ''gaat''.  Plus other things  

On 9/16/2014, 5:00:25, beccagreen said:

Catsup sounds, well not sound but the spelling looks weird. I always pronounce it as "Cat's Up" whenever I see it without realizing what it meant. I thought it was just a joke or something. And ketchup feels better in the eyes and the tongue. 

I am a Spanish speaker and to be honest my whole life I thought that Catsup was only used by Spanish speakers and ketchup was only used by English speakers.  I thought we were responsible for that odd spelling     Glad to know we really aren't, that both versions are used in the English speaking countries.  I personally prefer to use ''Ketchup'' when speaking English, and only use catsup when speaking with Spanish speakers. 

On 10/20/2015, 7:05:21, Enrico said:

Me gusta hacer correr! Y hace ejercisio. Me gusta tambien estudiar los idiomas y me gusta tocar con mis gatos:)

Me gusta hacer correr y hacer ejercicio.  Me gusta tambien  estudiar los idiomas y me gusta tocar (eh?) con mis gatitos.  <----- Not sure what you meant with this last bit, but I will assume you meant you like to play with your cats.  In that case you can simply say: Me gusta jugar con mis gatitos.  Me tome la libertad de tachar las palabras que no hacen falta y corregir las que estaban mal escritas. 

On 11/9/2015, 9:00:47, Elimination said:

¡Hola a todos!
Yo soy de México (la Ciudad de México, que es la capital), tengo 26 años y una hermosa familia. Trabajo como asesor de seguros de vida y gastos médicos. Estudié teoría musical pero finalmente no me dediqué a eso.
Mis pasatiempos incluyen componer música (escucharla también), jugar videojuegos, reunirme con amigos, pasear con mi familia, leer, y también me gusta estudiar lenguajes.
Cualquier otra cosa que les interese saber, pregúntenme con confianza.

 Hace poco estuve en la ciudad de Mexico, en que delegacion estás?   Yo tambien soy de Mexico   Es muy interesante ver gente por aca que tambien sea de Mexico.  Espero que estes disfrutanto tu estadia en este forum, si tienes algun problema con el idioma aleman ten toda la confianza de preguntar.  De hecho el administrador de este foro habla Aleman  

On 10/27/2015, 2:49:50, anna3101 said:

Me gusta mucho la sala, la bachata y el merengue pero también la música pop. Escucho a Julieta Venegas, Malú, Los Titanes, Ray Sepulveda, Thalía, Frank Reyes y otros.

Il Divo ha algunas canciones muy bonitas en español ("Solo otra vez", "Isabel", "La vida sin amor" etc).

Quisiera descubrir las canciones españolas o latinas de "los viejos tempos" (años 50-60-70). Quizás me podeis recomendar algunas?

Grazias!

Muy buen trabajo, chica.  Algunos pequeños errores, pero nada de que preocuparse. De hecho tu nivel es bastante bueno   Felicidades!  ¿Cuanto tiempo has estado estudiando el idioma español?  Pareces escribirlo bastante bien!   Por cierto si te interesa la musica de antes, entonces deberias escuchar a artistas como: 

I TOTALLY love this one:

5 hours ago, OmniHead said:

¡Totalmente de acuerdo contigo Trellum!

Actualmente la mayoría de música en español es un "refrito" (cover) de canciones que fueron hit en los 80s y los 90s. Lo peor es que hay artistas que grabaron las canciones originalmente, como Juan Gabriel, Miguel Bosé y Diego Verdaguer, que este año volvieron a regrabar sus mismas canciones pero con diferent ritmo, y algunas suenas infames.

Sin embargo, la música en inglés es similarmente mala en estos días y yo prefiero escuchar "viejitas" (oldies) de los 80s y 90s tanto en inglés como en español.

 

 

 

Concuerdo contigo amigo,   a mi la verdad  ni la música en español ni la música en inglés modernas me gustan.  En mi opinión la escena musical actual es aun peor caundo hablamos de la musica en ingles, especialmente el mercado americano.  Es terrible, la misma musica reciclada una y otra vez... es dificil distinguir un artista de otro en la radio.  No es como en ls 90's   Antes los videos de musica eran sper originales, ya no mas.  Por eso tambien prefiero las viejitas   Que suerte haber crecido en los 90's! 

On 10/31/2015, 3:00:29, anna3101 said:

Well, my Dutch is not that good, so I probably won't be of much help to you but if you need some kind of enthusiastic person that wants to know more about Dutch, then you've found one My spoken Dutch is probably around A1. I've never had any practice and I can't make correct sentences. I'm a bit better at reading, probably around A2-B1, mostly because of the similarities between Dutch and German.

Actually, I've started to learn Dutch a long, long time ago because I fancied a guy from the Netherlands The fascination quickly went away but my love for the language stayed, so even if I sometimes do not do anything with my Dutch for months on end, I always end up coming back to it simply because I really like it.

My main problem is, well, exactly what you've mentioned in your post:

Dutch is not popular here in Poland. The common reaction to someone trying to learn it "Well, what for?". And that's a problem for me because in order to make any progress I need to have some kind of "learning  buddy" I'm a very lazy person, and left to my own devices, I'd probably stay day after day in bed and do nothing. This is why I always rely on "external" motivators. I'm very lucky to have people with whom I can study (or at least, who can control me ) when it comes to my English, French and Italian. I'm hoping to find someone for Spanish soon but I know I have a zero chance of doing the same for Dutch. Which is a pity

And yes, my partner is Polish and what can I say? He's the best man in the whole universe And he's also the reason why I'm so often complemented on my Polish. He always corrects my mistakes but in a very friendly way and talking to him has been the best language course ever

I can help you with your Spanish if you want =D What methods are you using to learn it and what is your level in Spanish?   And by the way, right now my speaking level (Dutch) is A1,  as for reading also A1.  I need to work harder, but while I wait for my results I guess I can try and relax for a bit   Last weeks have been very stressing.  By the way, from what part of Russia are you?  I'm curious =D My great great grandfather was  Russian as well   I might try to learn Russian as well, but the script makes me kind of nervous.  

On 11/1/2015, 3:36:01, anna3101 said:

Thanks a lot for sharing, Sefrah98! Unfortunately, I was not able to look at the site - it says "your access is limited" or something like that

Same thing happened to me, very weird message!  It's a shame, I was hoping to see Dutch there    Oh well, I recently found some very helpful sites, I hope I can share them on here very soon.  Some are a bit old, but really good   I still prefer a good grammar book though, but those are not so easy to find, not even in English.

On 11/10/2015, 4:01:03, JapanGuy said:

The Memrise app has been improved a lot compared to how it used to be. However, I would only recommend it once you want to cram vocabulary and things in. It's not like Duolingo or other apps that are trying to teach you a language. I think the most frustrating part about Memrise is how tedious it is to add your own words and things to a database. That's why I ended up going with a different app for my phone to study vocabulary. 

Really? Creating my word list helped me memorize more words even easier =D   Now I understand more Dutch   You should consider giving it another try    I first wrote all the books I wanted to add from my course on a notebook (so I didn't end up repeating the same words several times), then I transcribed those words to WORD, after that I added them to Memrise and voila!  

1 hour ago, watangaboy said:

They do help a lot, at least in my case. You get used to the accent and start to relate each word you read to the sound when it's spoken. Of course, this happens when you have a certain knowledge of the language. If I were to watch a foreign film in Russian (which I know nothing of). I'd try to recognize certain repeated words and its translation to my native language and in the end learn some vocabulary (not any conjugation of verbs or tenses) at a really slow pace. Also, I'd try to avoid fansubs and get official subtitles of some sort. 

That is true, you need to have certain level of knowledge in that language in order to be able to  take advantage of this.   So I definitely think is not for everyone. I actually tried watching movies with Dutch subtitles earlier on and didn't see a lot benefit from it, but I think that once you reach the conversational level and you are looking for colloquial phrases I think  that is where you need to be looking. 

On 12/12/2015, 5:08:20, Richard.H said:

I would call it "hard but simple" hahaha. I would have agreed with you on the script part a few years back, but now I think it's actually not that difficult. It's more scary than anything. But as long as you start that's basically half work done.

The other one is stick with it and actually practice on daily basis.

The hardest thing for ME would be listening. It really takes the longest time to get used to. 3 reasons I would mention here, obviously the tones (unless you already know a tone-based language this will prove rather tricky to get used to), the fact that everything sounds the same! hahaha (different words have different pronunciation of course, but they are still very close to each other with minimal difference, example: q, j; ch, zh; n, ng; shi, she....it really takes some getting used to being able to really hear the difference), finally there are words with the same pronunciation and the same spelling (usually different character though, but not always) but they mean different things!

So 1. tone changes the meaning, 2. words sound very much alike and again the meaning is different, 3. same pronunciation (tones and everything) yet different meaning again.

Now of course, literally billions of people speak Chinese, so it's not impossible to learn it, it's just a very slow process with getting used to the above. Especially if you don't live in Chinese speaking country.

Compare with that, I find the writing to be not so bad

yeah perhaps you're right there. It would be easier if you didn't have to remember 3 characters and the tones for these 3

"Open car" means to drive. So I agree with you in a sense that the logic is easy or rather simple. But wouldn't go so far as to say easy to remember. Perhaps the English translations are easier to remember since they are so interesting

Just for the record I think "王国" means "kingdom", but "美国" should mean "beautiful country" if I'm not mistaken. I think the reason for this (and this is merely an educated guess) is that when America was discovered it was nice and beautiful and unspoiled. So calling it "beautiful country" was not so far fetched I think. What it is now is a topic for another time.

Ugh, I got nauseous just thinking of that, lol.  Gosh, I repeat it: I respect those who are learning this language so much!    It takes a lot courage and motivation to do so, something not many people have.  I definitely don't   I could only imagine myself learning Chinese if I really had to. 

@Blaveloper   Aren't you learning spanish anymore? What happened?  

18 hours ago, loulou said:

To me, teachers can really make or break how you not only learn a language but how you feel about it as well. When we had to pick high school foreign languages as an elective, I never would have guessed picking German on a whim would have led me to where I am now in my studies. My teacher was so into everything Germany related and actually had the heart and passion to want us to learn the language. He even would take certain students to Germany as exchange students for a month during the summer to help teach them about the language and certain things. Having someone who cares about the language can mean everything; if they are just teaching you because they have to or feel obligated, then there won't be any enthusiasm. I am a firm believer of making something interesting, fun and encouraging to help students not only learn better but to actually want to learn to continue learning. Plus, it can really, really strengthen your conversational skills and pronunciation having an actual human being to physically talk to instead of a text book.

Wow... your teacher sounds like the most amazing teacher ever, for reals!   I wish I had had a teacher like that, but I have never had a teacher that motivated and passionate for what he does.   I guess I haven't been very lucky in that sense either.   Are you one of those students who ended up going in a student exchange to Germany? 

On 12/11/2015, 1:43:28, Chris_A said:

I also had teachers like that in High School. They usually presented themselves as people you don`t mess with, or who could mess you up for good if you messed with them. I usually tried to prove them wrong and tried to excel in their particular class. Getting an A from such a teacher and showing them that you don`t back down, feels really good.

When you face this during high school is different than when you face it when you are a 3rd grader, believe me.  This whole incident traumatized me so badly, but fortunately I got over it and now I am a new person. I still have confidence issues, in which I feel some doubt. Specially when it comes to school, I still fear I might not be able to do certain things, specially if I ever go back to college.