Learning Nederlandse Taal

Halo,

Ik ben Annissa!

Aangenaam.

I've settled in the Netherlands. What a lovely country it is for sure (but fuck the wind!). I made friends, both from my classes and from my other class. What classes do I mean? So, I have a normal class (classes included in my program) and Dutch Class. 

Why do you learn Dutch? Is it gonna be worldwide used?

Well, I'd say No. The vast majority of Dutch people themselves are very good with their English. For instance, I am a frequent visitor of the Fresh Market, every week. I have never once used Dutch during my communication with the sellers or the other buyers. Why? Because they speak English very well. So, why would I need that, right? In another occasion, I have tried to speak basic conversation in Dutch, such as: Goedemorgen. Een kopje thee, alsjeblieft (Good Morning. A cup of tea, please). If you started with this, then you expect something in Dutch as the return, don't you? But, haha (I sometimes laugh to myself if this happens) they don't! They'll be happy to have a conversation in English with you. Presumably, I have something written in my face telling people not to speak other languages with me but English. OR my Dutch sounds terrible so they just don't want to waste more time with me struggling with my language. 

But, being able to at least make a simple conversation in Dutch would give me another plus score. And, unlike other European languages that have weird sounds, like French's /R/ or Czech's /R/ which is unbelievably difficult to pronounce, Dutch tends to be pretty easy. Especially if you are an Indonesian and you speak Engish. You obviously could skip basic classes (but you need to adapt with the spellings).

So, could you please teach me some basic or show me Dutch in brief?

Basically, the writing is like when you want to type something in English but you fall asleep on your keyboard. It appears like you type all the letters and voila! Or, if you understand Indonesian, it would be more like if you want to write down something in English but using the Indonesian spelling. For example: in de trein (in the train). 

Plus, if you are an Indonesian, you will be helped a lot by some similar words, like: gratis (free), handook (towel), rok (skirt), rawit (chili paper), or sereh (lemon grass) (though I'm not sure if the word sereh really comes from the Dutch). Oh, one favorite word that I love the most and also being used in Indonesia: trakteer!!!! (who doesn't love free food?!)

It's also not too complicated when it comes to the grammar (perhaps. so far). The conjugation is kinda easy to be processed in my brain, perhaps the basic of Deutsch, French, and Spanish helped me with this. In fact, Dutch has less variation of conjugation, unlike Slovakian root languages. So for example: mijn huis is in Groningen (my house is in Groningen). Simple, right?

But you really need to be aware of the letter /g/. It's like French r, but it's g. Get it? To me, it sounds like if you want to clean your throat. Another thing is it might have similar pronunciation with German. So if you have basic in German, it'll help you even a lot more, for sure. 

I'm gonna post some of the pictures, in the upcoming opportunity (if I'm not lazy, or if I don't forget to capture some) Teeeeheee!