Language Course 2 – Week 1

Yes Ladies and Gentlemen, Dames and Heren, it’s back on. I’m partaking in a second language course. Let’s see how much more knowledge I can shove into my brain without things falling out. Alternatively, let’s see if we can figure out what old knowledge gets squeezed out of my brain in the process! Fun times all ‘round!

It was a great start to the week. I arrived early and discovered that by happy circumstance Ik heb mijn docent (my teacher) back! I was glad. I like her. (Hoi! *waves at Trix for brownie points*). The class was made up the leftovers from the two original “Nederlands 1” classes so there were some faces I knew, and some I didn’t. I am the only native English speaker, though they all speak English. I am ashamed of myself yet again! It seems to be a really good group though!

Unlike the first lesson of the first course where I sat floundering and feeling quite useless and pathetic, we began with revision to make sure that in the two weeks off we hadn’t forgotten all the material this second course would be building upon. Nothing like confirming that you can still do your ABCs and 123s to give you some confidence! Yet again there was the conversation about my name. I have created a long hard road for myself there. Oh well.

It was quite reassuring that, with a bit of prompting and clarification on the odd word, we can all (mostly) fumble our way through a shallow conversation. Things like; I am, I do, I’m from, I speak. I left in high spirits with my attention focused on my huiswerk (homework).

Lesson two was more revision. I had been made aware previously that the beginning of Course 2 was an overview of Course 1, but I’m loving having the chance to go over all of it again (though at a faster pace) while back in a classroom environment. I’m also loving how useful the book and all the notes from the first course have been!

We spent time going over a whole bunch of standard responses to everyday questions, and then practiced them over and over and over again. Some of them I do use on a daily basis, others I should make more effort to use. I really need to increase my vocabulary.

We then worked on the correct sentence structure of the answer to the question “Where are you going to?” Yet again I’m grateful that there are such hard and fast grammatical rules, unlike the English “guidelines,” it makes it so much easier to learn, and figure out when you’re going wrong! But still, as always, more practice is needed. I will get there. I really need to correct my pronunciation.

Over the Long Weekend, I have to write out all the conjugations of the most commonly used verbs in Dutch. Should be a good refresher!

Fijn weekend; tot maandag!