Daniel: "... focusing on my Dutch skills instead, further building up my vocabulary in that language by taking 10-20 minutes each day listening to newcasts and songs"

Hier kan je een beetje Duits van Hitler hijzelf leeren:
http://anonghena.wordpress.com/2012/...-laatste-show/

En ik heb deze link voor en leuke versie van het welbekende Italiaanse lied van mijn nichtje gekregen 
www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBDl9NJapz8

Dank je wel DAX

Monique Smit is jouw nichtje?

Ik heb deze clip met een andere wereldleider, Moammar Khaddafi hijzelf, gevonden.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=plDovd-Khw4

"We beginnen met een paar dilemma's" "Ik ben niet zo'n lezer" Grappig!

En Jean Marie Pfaff liet mij zien dat ik duits al kan spreken!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDf0p4MgFmw

:) Daniel

Nee mijn nichtje is alleen maar 11.
Bringing it back to English since this is an english board. I'm quite impressed by your Dutch. I don't understand why would you be interested in learning Dutch when it has very limited use, is it because of the nice people :)

In answer to your question:

I do have about 5% Dutch ancestry, but that was a minor factor if at all. I originally started to learn Dutch as I wanted to be a courteous guest for a 10-day trip in June 2012 to Haarlem & surrounds. Then, I can't explain it, I loved it and things just snowballed. Once I slogged through the basic grammar and got used to the pronunciation differences, I would pick up vocabulary fairly easily as I can almost always find a (Germanic?) logic to words. Learning Dutch I feel has reminded me of a word-game I played as a child where you would change letters/sounds one at a time to go from one word to another word (hoofdpijn-> hoofdpain --> hoodpain --> headpain (headache)), although words sometimes seem to have morphed in unexpected ways. I love that I now understand most of a newscast in a language that only a year before sounded like gobbledygook; it's thrilling and seems to maintain my interest. The only sad part is I have no one to talk to where I live in the language.

Hello,

I wanted to thank all those who encouraged me to give German a go. I took an introductory course this summer and while I can't really speak or write yet beyond very basic learned sentences, I've started listening to news clips on Deutsche Welle and I'm amazed that to a surprisingly large extent I actually understand what's being said.

I think Dutch gave me an edge understanding my teacher at the Goethe Institut and certainly helps tremendously for piecing together sentences in news clips, from knowing the expected word order to even vocabulary (I didn't know the word besuchen but I pieced it together from bezoeken for example). The following statement seems to be a controversial one in the blogosphere but this is the opinion I've come to: I will even go so far as to recommend for those who have wanted to learn German but have become exasperated to try learning Dutch first as a bridge to German. You'll wrap your mind around the Germanic word order, declension, separable verbs and vocabulary without having to worry about cases and with only two genders, you might not give up as quickly while you will be learning valuable lessons that will help you with German if you give Goethe's sprache another attempt.

Thanks to all again and best wishes, Daniel

I will even go so far as to recommend for those who have wanted to learn German but have become exasperated to try learning Dutch first as a bridge to German. You'll wrap your mind around the Germanic word order, declension, separable verbs and vocabulary without having to worry about cases and with only two genders, you might not give up as quickly while you will be learning valuable lessons that will help you with German if you give Goethe's sprache another attempt.>>

hi Daniel, congrats on the success with german.

you've given me an idea, actually - as i can speak german, do I interpret the above as meaning that if I were to try dutch, I'd have no problems with the grammar, there are no cases, and only 2 genders? sounds a doddle - if it weren't for the pronunciation that is.

I tried German a year ago and concluded that my aging brain was just not designed for the language. Russian was easier!

How can you have only 2 genders? In any case, I never thought the number of genders was a particular problem in a language, as the neuter gender isn't used much, anyway, in the languages I've studied, it is mainly for pronouns.

Wikipedia claims Dutch has 3 genders (masculine, feminine and neuter) but in most cases the articles and inflections are the same for masculine and feminine, so you can't tell them apart.

Christina--I really meant 2 definite articles; there are only a few contexts where masculine and feminine comes into play. It's "het" for the neuter, and "de" for the non-neuter; het is less common and often used with certain letter combinations too which makes life easier. I found having "der", "die" and "das" in German complicates matters, especially since the article comes into play when thinking about adjectives, looking at cases like accusative, etc... I saw a few patterns in the article, but it adds to the memorization for sure.

annhig-- If you do give Dutch a try, I'd recommend Living Languages (their books however were not as good for German). Dense with good vocabulary choices and very focused lessons. While certainly learning any language, even close ones, requires a certain amount of slogging and discipline, I think with German under your belt, you will reap rewards rather quickly.

Daniel, I am like you in that English is my first language and French is my second. I also studied German in college. I like grammar so that aspect of German fascinated me. I did ask my German professor why German seemed so much more difficult than French or Spanish. Her reply rang true for me. So much of the vocabulary, especially the verbs, do not resemble English, French or Spanish.

I did ask my German professor why German seemed so much more difficult than French or Spanish. Her reply rang true for me. So much of the vocabulary, especially the verbs, do not resemble English, French or Spanish.>>

shane - I missed this post first time round and I have to day that I disagree with the good professor , as many german words are very similar to english words but even if they are not exactly the same they are easy [for me] to comprehend.

I find Italian and Spanish much less intuitive in that respect, though it may becauseI did german at school [as I did French which find harder] but I learnt Italian and Spanish a lot later.

<<As per my personal experience, to start with the fundamental of this language, I chose to initiate with German names. I started learning pronunciation of each names through http://www.babynology.com/german_babynames.html and then I went through all the basics of this language.>>

that seems to be a somewhat idiosyncratic approach to language learning and were I a cynic, I might conclude from the fact that this is your first and only post that you have some interest in bringing that website to the attention of the posters here.

and if you've gone through all the basic of German in 2 months, I salute you!

My son met a beautiful Austrian girl and he found German very easy to learn. Love conquers all.

lol, we lost the advertiser, making my comments [almost] meaningless.