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My journal for the Give it 100 challenge. |
 LEARNING DUTCH This is my journal for the "Give It 100!"  challenge. I aim to study the Dutch language for 100 days by earning at least 20 experience points on Duolingo per day. I will use this journal to write updates on my progress and to keep track of what I am learning. I aim to start on January 19th and am permitted to take 14 days off. Depending on how many of my permitted days off I use, my end date will be somewhere between April 28th and May 12th. ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** Please see "Give It 100!" for more information.Progress chart:
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I did it! I did it! I did it! I did it! I did it! And not a single day off! I used my last day of the challenge to take another progress quiz and this time I scored 2.7/5, so I am getting better all the time. I feel so proud of myself for doing this. It has been a lot of fun, though hard at times. I thought I would be able to complete the 100 days but I didn't imagine I could do it with no days off. I am awesome!  Ik spreek Nederlands nogal goed!  (I speak Dutch quite well!  ) To complete the challenge I am supposed to write a summary and/or motivational speech about my Give it 100 experience, so here is mine: I hesitated to begin the Give it 100 challenge because I am so busy with work and university that I was worried I would make a commitment and then not be able to see it through. However, I was enjoying my Dutch study a lot, often using it as a form of relaxation, and I thought that maybe I could actually do this, as long as I didn't set myself an absurdly tough goal, and also allowed myself the safety net of fourteen days off if I needed it. I was still pretty much a complete Dutch language beginner when I started the challenge, so my journal is a wonderful record of my progress and I know I am going to enjoy reading through it and seeing how far I have come. There were days, especially early on, when I felt disillusioned and doubted my ability to learn the language, and I wanted to give up. I think the "prepositions" and "conjunctions" topics hit me the hardest because they were such a big jump in difficulty level. But... I persevered and moved past those stumbling blocks. Now I preposition like a pro ( ) and conjugate like a semi-pro (yeah, this still needs some work!  ) but I am getting there.Learning a language is a journey and I am so glad I began it here on writing.com by taking part in Give it 100. This has helped me to keep on track and stay focused. The encouragement in the form of kind words and sponsorship motivated me to keep going, even when I felt frustrated and disillusioned. Completing my last day, and knowing I haven't taken a single day off, has given me a true sense of achievement. I am proud of myself for being so focused, disciplined, committed and determined. I am still a novice when it comes to Dutch and I am a long way from being fluent but I have made a positive start and I want to continue learning this beautiful language. I am hopeful that I will keep making progress and that one day I will achieve my ultimate goal of reading Anne Frank's diary in the language she wrote it in: Dutch. Please wish me luck as I continue on this exciting journey! |
| I think it is going to take me a while to grasp adverbs! Many of them bear no resemblance to their English counterparts, so it is difficult to remember them. Plus word order is still an issue for me, and that is making things more difficult. Double plus, there seems to be several different words meaning the same thing, but no explanation whether they can be used interchangeably or not, or if there are certain rules etc. Still, I'm sure I'll pick it up eventually. I think my favourite sentence from the Adverbs lessons so far is: Ik ben niet noodzakelijk een hond  I am not necessarily a dog.  Bizarrely, there is one Dutch word that always throws me and that is "bioscoop". This means "cinema" but I almost always translate it as "library" first and I am wondering if this is because it is vaguely similar to "bibliothèque", the French word for "library". I can think of no other explanation, because why would I think "bioscoop" is library? I don't even know the Dutch word for library yet so it's not because it is similar and I am getting the two mixed up. Is "bibliothèque" really the most stand out word from my GCSE French days? I guess so! Anyway, I just looked up the Dutch word for "library" and it is "bibliotheek". I'm not sure that's going to help with the whole "bioscoop" issue! I wish I could get it fixed in my head that "bioscoop" = "cinema"! ARGH! So... I have just ONE day to go! And I have had ZERO days off!  Unless I die today, I am going to complete Give it 100! |
| Bijwoorden zijn zeer moelijk! Ik hou niet van bijwoorden! (Adverbs are very difficult! I do not like adverbs!) There seems to be about a million different words to mean "usually" and also "very". Are they interchangeable or can some only be used in certain situations? Well, Duolingo isn't going to provide that very helpful information!  Anyway... Ik ben bijna klaar! (I am nearly done!) |
| I have moved on to Adverbs but adverbs are hard! Argh! Once I have gone through these lessons, and possibly the Objects lessons, I will spend time just going over and over them, plus the health lessons too. I have decided that when I've completed this challenge I will reward myself by purchasing a Dutch copy of Anne Frank's diary. While I don't think I am ready to read it yet (I need to cover past and future tenses first) I am almost there and will be able to understand a lot of it. I am also going to look into getting a Dutch copy of the first Harry Potter book. I think it would be a good idea to attempt to read a book that I know extremely well in English and that is relatively simple. Exciting! |
| Whoa... just five days to go and I have completed the challenge! Today I have continued to work on "health" words, which includes some body parts. Duolingo continues to provide funny and interesting phrases to practise the vocabulary, such as: Waarom zijn mijn handen oranje? Why are my hands orange?I can also say: Zij praten achter mijn rug. This means "they talk behind my back", which is very fitting as I am just about to go to work with a colleague who I know has been talking behind my back.  But maybe I'll blog about that later over at "Invalid Item" .I like the way pain is expressed in Dutch, for example, "My head hurts" would be "Mijn hoofd doet pijn". The phrase "doet pijn" appears to be translated literally as "does pain" or "is doing pain". Interesting! |
| Today I have moved on to learning health-related words and my new favourite Dutch word has to be: Verpleegkundige This means "nurse". How funny that so many Dutch words are similar to English words, but they have such a long, complicated one for the very simple word "nurse"! I love it!Oh, and I just learned that the language Afrikaans is very similar to Dutch and that it is relatively easy to understand it if you know Dutch. So I think I might start learning that when I am more competent at Dutch. I also want to refresh my French and German and get more fluent in both of those languages. And I have always been very interested in Swahili. So at some point down the line I want to learn that too! Do you think it is possible? It would be pretty awesome to be able to say I can speak five languages! |
| Yay, I have worked through the whole list! Topics I need to work on 1. Basic adjectives 2. Formal 3. Verbs: present 4. Indefinite pronouns 5. Object pronouns 6. Prepositions 7. Conjunctions 8. Dates and Times 9. Places 10. Er vs. (T)here 11. Family 12. Present 2 (verbs) But I must admit that the topics "conjunctions", "Er vs. (T)here" and "Present 2 (verbs)" need further work but it is an ongoing process with them. Now I can move on to something new! |
| I can cross "Family" off the list! Not even sure why it was on there as I am pretty sound on family-related words: Topics I need to work on 1. Basic adjectives 2. Formal 3. Verbs: present 4. Indefinite pronouns 5. Object pronouns 6. Prepositions 7. Conjunctions 8. Dates and Times 9. Places 10. Er vs. (T)here 11. Family 12. Present 2 (verbs) Just one more topic to redo and then I am moving on to something new. Yay! |
| I'm going to cross the dreaded "Er vs. (T)here" topic off the list even though I am still making a lot of mistakes with them. Like with "conjunctions", it is going to take me a long time of just going over and over them until something clicks. I feel that with both topics something has almost clicked, but I'm not quite there yet! I am semi-okay with translating Dutch to English but translating English to Dutch remains problematic a lot of the time because of strange rules I can't seem to grasp. But I will get there, I'm sure, and I will continuing practising "er" and conjunctions as much as I can. Anyway, here are some idioms that continue to throw me from time-to-time, though I am getting better at recognising and remembering them: Komt het hierdoor? Is it because of this?Wat staat erop? What does it say?Hoe ziet het eruit? How does it look?Wij komen ertussen We interfere.And the list now looks like this: Topics I need to work on 1. Basic adjectives 2. Formal 3. Verbs: present 4. Indefinite pronouns 5. Object pronouns 6. Prepositions 7. Conjunctions 8. Dates and Times 9. Places 10. Er vs. (T)here 11. Family 12. Present 2 (verbs) I am looking forward to moving on to some new topics! |
| I have been working on the Er vs. (T)here module today, which has always been a hard topic for me. I am not ready to cross it off my list yet! I will probably do some more later. I feel like I am never going to grasp the rules of "er". But in happier news... I have just 10 days to go! |
| I can definitely cross "Places" off the list! I'm not sure why I even put this topic on there as it turns out I'm pretty solid on these! Topics I need to work on 1. Basic adjectives 2. Formal 3. Verbs: present 4. Indefinite pronouns 5. Object pronouns 6. Prepositions 7. Conjunctions 8. Dates and Times 9. Places 10. Er vs. (T)here 11. Family 12. Present 2 (verbs) |
| I'm going to cross dates and time off the list, even though I'm still not 100% confident with these! But I think I never will be, especially with time. I think I will just need to go over and over them until they are second nature. And the same with conjunctions! Anyway, before I cross this topic off the list, here is some Dutch. I used google translate a little because I did not know the words for "this" or "next". I'm not sure I have the word order correct either! I think once I have enough vocabulary to start reading, and have learned tenses other than present tense, I will begin to grasp word order. But here is my Dutch for today! Volgende week werk ik op maandag, dinsdag, woensdag, donderdag en vrijdag. Ik werk deze avond. Voordat het werk wil ik studeren, lopen mijn hond en misschien fiets... en slapen! So this means: Next week I am working on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. I am working this evening. Before work I want to sudy, walk my dog and maybe cycle... and sleep! Here's my list. It's nice to be able to cross topics off! Topics I need to work on 1. Basic adjectives 2. Formal 3. Verbs: present 4. Indefinite pronouns 5. Object pronouns 6. Prepositions 7. Conjunctions 8. Dates and Times 9. Places 10. Er vs. (T)here 11. Family 12. Present 2 (verbs) |
| Today I have made a start on re-doing the lessons for Dates and Time. There are eight lessons for this topic and I have done four. I might do the remaining four when I get home from work, or I might do them tomorrow. I'll see how I feel later! Anyway, here is some Dutch...!, Vaandag is woensday, en de maand is april (Today is Wednesday and the month is April). |
| I've been working on conjunctions again today and am now going to cross them off the list and move on. I am still not perfect on them but I don't think I ever will be! Topics I need to work on 1. Basic adjectives 2. Formal 3. Verbs: present 4. Indefinite pronouns 5. Object pronouns 6. Prepositions 7. Conjunctions 8. Dates and Times 9. Places 10. Er vs. (T)here 11. Family 12. Present 2 (verbs) |
| I have worked on prepositions a lot today and am now feeling confident enough to cross them off the list. If I am remembering correctly, prepositions was the first topic I really struggled with on Duolingo and it felt like a major stumbling block. I thought I would never get them but now I'm prepositioning like a pro! (Haha, that sounds so wrong!) But seriously, most of them feel second nature to me now... the basic ones anyway! Topics I need to work on 1. Basic adjectives 2. Formal 3. Verbs: present 4. Indefinite pronouns 5. Object pronouns 6. Prepositions 7. Conjunctions 8. Dates and Times 9. Places 10. Er vs. (T)here 11. Family 12. Present 2 (verbs) |
| And another one bites the dust! I can cross Object Pronouns off the list: Topics I need to work on 1. Basic adjectives 2. Formal 3. Verbs: present 4. Indefinite pronouns 5. Object pronouns 6. Prepositions 7. Conjunctions 8. Dates and Times 9. Places 10. Er vs. (T)here 11. Family 12. Present 2 (verbs) |
| I have worked on present verbs and indefinite pronouns today so feel I can cross them off the list! 1. Basic adjectives 2. Formal 3. Verbs: present 4. Indefinite pronouns 5. Object pronouns 6. Prepositions 7. Conjunctions 8. Dates and Times 9. Places 10. Er vs. (T)here 11. Family 12. Present 2 (verbs) Also, I took the big quiz again to assess my progress and scored 2.55/5, which I think is good for where I'm at, and also shows I am progressing, as my previous scores are: 1.17, 1.33, 1.48, 1.63, 2.09, 2.24 and now 2.55 of course. At least they are going up! As I am about half way through the Duolingo programme I think my score seems about right. Go me! |
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You are awesome! 
Thanks for coming up with a sentence about me! 
). Very quirky and surreal. You'll have to read it to me in the Dutch original sometime 