Something I am enjoying a lot at the moment is my Dutch language class. This term I am doing Dutch 3 at TAFE.
Last week we worked on the perfect tense (e.g. “I have worked” Ik heb gewerkt) which seems straightforward enough, apart from needing to remember the conjugation rules. We also continued working on separable verbs (zich generen “to feel embarrassed”; Ik geneer me “I feel embarrassed”, Wij generen ons “We feel embarrassed”, etc.) – these separable verbs, of which Dutch has lots, are quite challenging. My grammar book defines a separable verb as “one with a prefix (e.g. opbellen “to ring up”) which separates from the verb and stands at the end of the clause in the present and imperfect tenses (e.g. Hij belde mij op) and which permits the ge- of the past participle to be inserted between it and the rest of the verb, e.g. Hij heeft mij opgebeld.” (Dutch: A comprehensive grammar, p. 334)
The thing that I find most fascinating and most frustrating about learning a language is the rules. The adult mind has so much difficulty trying to grasp rules that babies seem to just pick up in their first few years of life. You just seem to know the rules in your first language, without having to think about them, and without being able to describe them, necessarily – and everything flows naturally.
When you learn another language you have to start all over again and can take nothing for granted. It also makes you appreciate your first language a lot more, I find.
6 Comments
Those rules all seem perfectly sensible to me, but I grew up hearing and speaking Afrikaans :p Although I do have some trouble with sentence structure – probably because I only spoke it as a child, and it’s been over 10 years since then.
I really like the way languages like Dutch, German and Afrikaans make new words by adding words together – like the opbellen & opgebeld you mention. My favourite Afrikaans word is geeet, past tense of eet (meaning ‘eat’) – so many ‘e’s! ‘Cameelperd’ is another favourite – it means giraffe, but the literal translation is camel-horse – so much more descriptive!
Languages are fun 🙂
I feel quite bad about how little progress I’ve made with my self-study book while I’ve been here! Like Akkadis I like the combining thing too – slapkamer for bedroom for instance. I think the difficult thing for me is being motivated to learn when I won’t be here for all that long and I wouldn’t have a need for Dutch when I get home :/
And when you aren’t taught grammar at school, all those rules are like learning another language at the same time.
Glad english and dutch are sort of both my first languages…I learnt english when I was 5.
Well, I don’t know the rules, I just know what sounds right… most of the time… Dutch is harder. But I was in Australia for all of primary school and half of high school, definitely missed out on the basics of dutch grammar.
Argh, I’m just messed up!
But glad to hear you’re still enjoying your lessons!
You must come to bloggers sometime again, we can talks dutch! Just don’t ask me anything about grammar!! 😀
Akkadis, I love geeet!! Does Afrikaans have the guttural ‘g’ (ch) sound as well?
Fiona I guess there’s enough English in Den Haag that it doesn’t matter whether you speak Dutch or not, huh?
Penny, I love that analogy of grammar being another language 🙂
Inderdad Simone! I find mid-week social events very draining, which is why I haven’t been coming along to bloggers lately (that, and I have been baking an amazing number of cakes lately!). But the idea of being able to speak Dutch with you is quite tempting… 🙂
CW – yes, I think it is the same sound, or very similar. I can’t do it as well as I used to – I only sometimes get it right. My dad’s name is Gerhardt – bit of a worry when I can’t pronounce my own father’s name right 😛