jcairns82

I think it's important to recognize your own abilities.  Do you learn through immersing yourself or do you like to do it piece by piece.  Learning a language is like learning any other skill.  Think of skills that you easily picked up and what was connected to it.

For myself, I'm motivated by sharing with others what I've learned.  Sure my friends have no clue what I'm saying in the learned language, but I can still impress them with a few simple sentences.

I poorly spanish, french, and dutch all with a terrible english accent.  It's very disconcerting, but I figure that it's better than nothing.  I wouldn't worry too much about it.

If you're interested in it, I'd definitely encourage you to pursue it.  Languages are great, as they open up opportunities to connect with other people.

I did a basic  google search about 5 months ago, when I was interested in it too and found many people that were speaking it and even conferences, where they meet up.

Does anybody have any key differences that I should be aware of for travel in Belgium?  I'm heading there soon and speak Canadian french, but I understand that there are some differences.

Any ideas what some things that I should be aware of?

Every time I tell someone that I'm learning Dutch, they comment that everyone speaks English in the Netherlands.  I guess it depends on the kind of work that you plan on doing, but if you'll just be socializing, apparently, there's not much point.

Any Dutch folks that can attest to this?

Thanks for adding these phrases.

What's the proper use of alstublieft.  I thought it meant please, but I'm watching some Dutch broadcast and it's used quite often.

As well, what's the method behind using de/het?

Ah, thanks for clearing up my mistake.  I've been doing some courses on memrise and must've mixed that up.  Some nice additions to the list too that I've seen, but didn't recall.

As I'm starting to learn some dutch, I'm noticing that there's a lot that is the same in both English and Dutch.  Then there's some items that look like English, but it's something different.

A few I can think of are:

Bang in Dutch means Afraid

Glad in Dutch means Rubber

What are some other things that people can think of?

I'm anticipating a trip to Frankfurt in the coming months.  Would anybody have any common phrases for travelers available?

I'm starting to learn some Dutch and keep reading that German speakers can easily make the transition. 

What are the similarities between the two? 

Are there any good sites? 

Would you suggest learning Dutch and German at the same time?

I'd like to encourage my nephew to learn more Spanish.  What are some popualr children's characters that have books written in Spanish?

Most of my encounters are with people learning English and it seems to be one of the easiest to learn.  For this reason, I wish that I spoke a different language.  It seems that the opportunities to learn English are plentiful for others.  They listen to the music, watch sitcoms and films - all with English in it.  They're at least familiar with it, when they go to learn it.  I have no exposure to other languages, so it's been more difficult.

One of my last employers noted that my interest in languages is the reason for hiring me.  I'm only fluent in my native tongue (English); however, I have tried to learn the basics of a number of other languages.  It demonstrated to the employer that I am willing to learn and they appreciated this due to having a diverse customer portfolio.

I've found that the Lonely Planet country specific books are always a good resource for getting the basic phrases.  If you pick it up, there's a section at the start with common phrases that you can utilize in the town/country that you'll be visiting. 

One of the other replies gave you a great start; however, there's probably more that you'll use on your trip.

I've been using Duolingo's website to practice my Spanish and French for the last month.  I've found it really helpful and has assisted me with progressing faster than using other methods.

Does anybody have experience using Duolingo's mobile app for android or ios?

Please help me out with suggesting a few basic phrases that will help me while traveling the Netherlands. 

Suggestions are:

Where's the bus/train station?

How much is it?

Do you speak English?

Can you help me?

I understand that most people speak English, but I'd like to practice the language.

I'm doing my best to learn the language for an anticipated move to the Netherlands, but it's not easy.  If you have any suggestions for learning to speak it, then I'd like to know.  I find that many sites offer the words, but not the audio for it.  I've tried out some words on some Dutch friends and they have no clue what I'm saying.  Saying it phonetically in English is getting me nowhere.

I am finding that one of my struggles is with sentence structure.  Do you have any tips with having a thought in English and then how I would rearrange it to fit Dutch requirements?

Also, how do I figure out if it's de or het, I keep screwing this up?