Amsterdam trip No. 2 (and a book recommendation)

I was planning a trip to Amsterdam toward the end of April, but had to ask myself- why am I waiting? I want to be there now, and I am able to take the time away sooner than that so… shouldn’t I just go if I can? So, I’m going to be going on my second trip to Amsterdam in a few weeks and I am super-excited! (The very idea of riding around town on the back of Dutch Boy’s bike again is pretty endearing…) I hope to explore the city even more on my own this time, and we will also be venturing out of the city quite a few times.

I will be meeting his parents and brother for the first time- Hurray! (“Hoera!” as they say.) Of course everyone speaks English there, but I am extremely into learning languages and have never quite become fluent in any other than my native tongue of English, so this is my big chance His parents are quite a lot older and I’d love to someday have a conversation in Dutch with them to take the pressure off them trying to speak English with me. His brother is an English teacher and I am sure that as soon as we meet I’ll get to ask him my pressing grammar questions. So far, I’m self-teaching with a pretty good book called Beginner’s Dutch by Gerdi Quist and Dennis Strik. I recommend it if you can’t get into a class or get a private teacher. It’s quite basic when it comes to teaching the grammatical elements of the language- I really think that any person with no experience with grammatical terminology (even from the basics of “noun, adjective” etc., to subject/object differentiation) could follow this book very easily. That said, it is also not too basic for me, even though I have plenty of experience with language study, including German, which has a very similar grammatical structure as Dutch. It’s a terrific start for building my vocabulary with practical words and phrases to know for everyday life.

My only gripe would be that apparently this book can, in some places, be purchased with a CD with which you can listen along to certain exercises. I bought my copy at Barnes & Noble and they didn’t have any copies with a CD nor did I even know, when purchasing the book there, that a CD-version was an option. (I think B & N itself didn’t know when they put this book on the shelf, and that bothers me.) It only does so much good to read and write in another language. Listening is key to pronunciation and conversation abilities. Luckily, I will have real, live Dutch people to listen to in a few weeks.

So happy to have moved trip number 2 up!!