A Nether Ending Story

Another thing I didn’t anticipate

I’ve confronted many new things in The Netherlands. Most of the big shocks haven’t really been all that shocking - more inconvenient than anything else. Like where are all the Ziploc bags? And what do you mean they don’t sell bagged ice at the gas stations? Most of these shocks go over with a sigh and a shrug of the shoulders, but depending on my mood they can be the incendiary for an all-out crying bout. It’s not that I need Ziploc bags so badly I’m going to cry without them. It’s just that some days you aren’t feeling up to the adventure, to facing new and different experiences at every turn. Some days you just want to feel comfortable and know what’s coming next.

So that brings me to number 47 on the list of things I didn’t anticipate: The challenge of watching a movie with some or a large portion of the dialogue in a language other than English. Now, think about this for a second. If you’re a native English speaker and you watch, say, an American or English language film in another country, you’ll hear your language and see the language of the country (Dutch, in this case) at the bottom of the screen. No problem. But what if part of the dialogue in that American movie is in Spanish? The subtitles at the bottom of the screen are still in Dutch, but you don’t know Spanish. Awesome!

Thomas and I capped off our weekend with a date to see Machete in Breda. Most of the film is in English and luckily for me I studied Spanish in school and could catch on to most of the bits of Spanish dialogue, but it’s just something I didn’t anticipate on a trip where I planned to zone out and use as little of my brain as possible. This was the second movie I’ve viewed over here where I dealt with the multiple language “problem.” The first was when Thomas and I decided to watch Munich on DVD. Many scenes in the film were in a number of different languages - Hebrew, Arabic, French - and I found myself poking Thomas to remind him that I needed to know what was going on.

The good thing about all of this is that as I learn more Dutch I can understand more of the Dutch subtitles and try to get a grip on the scene at hand. I’ve been watching a lot of TV to soak up some of the immense time I have on my hands and using it as an opportunity to follow the subtitles and learn new words.

We’ll see how much Dutch I really know when I start my Dutch as a Foreign Language course tonight. My excuse for everything right now is “Ik kom uit Amerika!” Wish me luck.

(Still) Learning the language

Like most adults attempting to learn a second language, I’m having trouble figuring out what method(s) work best for me. I scour the Internet in search of tips, tricks, examples of how to organize a vocabulary notebook, helpful forum postings, etc. But in the end it comes down to scheduling time to learn the language and forcing yourself into situations that afford you opportunities to practice, both of which I’m having trouble doing. Discipline and will-power really aren’t my fortes, but the expat experience, more than any other I think, showers you with chances to poke holes in your character and find ways to improve. So…I’m trying.

Currently I have a copy of Rosetta Stone and I’m finding its beginning lessons to be far too simple, even for my basic knowledge of Dutch. However, I’m sticking to it because I worry I’ll miss something if I skip ahead. As frustrating as it is to re-learn the colors, for example, it is a bit satisfying to feel like I know at least a little Dutch. I spent quite a bit of time before the move learning Dutch through the free (and awesome) online community Livemocha. I plan on getting back into Livemocha to get feedback from native speakers on my writing and pronunciation. While there are a few cons to it (for example, poor quality audio recordings submitted from users), it’s an amazing site with a helpful community of language learners and I highly recommend it.

I’ve also created a vocabulary notebook based on the recommendations in this article. I’ve yet to start using it (discipline, discipline, discipline), but it’s there. Maybe today is the day.

But in the end I think a classroom is where I will really cut my teeth on Dutch. As a teacher and a lover of learning, being surrounded by other students is a great motivator for me. Signing up for a class can be expensive, but the Volksuniversiteit system in the Netherlands is a much less costly option. Roughly translated it is the “people’s university” and locations offer much more than language courses. Just a quick skim of the online catalog for the Volksuniversiteit Breda and I found art and gardening workshops, history and meditation classes, and Dutch grammar refresher courses for native speakers, just to name a few. My heart warmed for the Netherlands a bit more when I read the Wikipedia article (in Dutch) for the Volksuniversiteit: Apparently the government developed the university system as a way to promote life-long learning among its people. Thanks, Netherlands!

I decided on a course that starts a week from today and runs weekly through April with 24 sessions of one and a half hours. The cost is 234 euros, which doesn’t include the 50 euro price for the accompanying book and CD. This is much cheaper than most private language schools and obviously cheaper than private tutoring. But again, in the end, learning a language is about being disciplined enough to spend time learning it. It won’t happen via osmosis. Now, I’m off to work on a page in my vocabulary notebook…

Dealing with the Dutch (language, that is)

My flight to the Netherlands last month was delayed by a day, which forced me to spend a night in New York with my great friend and sometimes travel partner Ryan. After a delicious lunch at a vegan cafe and a much-needed cupcake, he walked me to the turnstiles of the Metro and gave me a big hug and said “You’re gonna learn Dutch like that!” and snapped his fingers.

I wondered. I’d been trying to learn the language ahead of my arrival with some teach-yourself software, but I hadn’t gotten far and being a teacher left little time for anything other than sleeping a few hours each night.

Now that I’ve been in Breda a month, I can safely say that I understand more Dutch than I ever thought I would at this point. There is a lot of truth in the immersion method, which I like to think of as the sink-or-swim method. I’m not working at the moment, which means I do a lot of grocery shopping, cooking, reading, and general thumb-twiddling. Confronting the grocery store is a sure-fire way to remind yourself that you still have a long way to go in learning the language. Take for example, my moment at the cash register:

Me: (I load my items onto the conveyor belt and get my euros and bags read). Hallo!

Cashier: Hallo. (Something in Dutch I don’t understand, but which now I realize is in regards to a bonus card).

Me: (smiling deer in headlights) Umm…nee?

Cashier: (continues about the business of scanning my items)

Me: (Hands over the money). Alsjeblieft.

Cashier: Dank je wel. (Asks me something else I don’t understand, but I think it’s about whether I want my receipt).

Me: Uh…dank je wel. Tot ziens. (I scurry to pack my bags and get out of there.)

My heart races every time I approach a cash register or a person at a produce stall in the market. Even the simplest of transactions aren’t so simple when you don’t know the language. After a month of taking in new words all around me, I can read a little bit of the language, but dealing with the many nuances of understanding it spoken still escapes me. At the weekly markets my interactions consist of me mainly pointing at peaches or cucumbers and saying please and thank-you.

I’m reading “Neither Here Nor There” by Bill Bryson at the moment (which I highly recommend reading in private lest you appear like a crazy person laughing maniacally with tears streaming down your face) and I identify with his comparison of the traveler who doesn’t know the language to an infant. You can’t read. You can’t speak. And when you truly need something you approach a native and make awkward gestures with your hands to get your point across.

Bryson admits he enjoys this part of traveling, but for me, as an expat and not a traveler, it’s a phase of this experience I hope to climb my way out of as soon as possible.