Tom Swifties (Nederlands)

While waiting to see my huisarts this morning (VGZ required a renewal of my physiotherapie prescription for my ankle) I picked u the office copy of Groet Wiek.  It’s a buurtblad, one of those little magazines, half adverts, half little lifestyle pieces, that pile up next to chairs in waiting rooms and restaurants.  This  week’s had pages on building a droombadkamer, the perfect haven after een lange, drukke dag, a Gehaktballetjes recipe (met Maatrichterstroop, if such  thing even exists), and society photos from a recent Groot Wyck Borrel.

So, I’m idly reading through this, skimming and dipping,when it occurs to me that I am idly reading through this.  No dictionary, no subcaptions, just ordinary, everyday reading.  ‘granted, it’s a buurtblad, but Fantastic!

 

I had always expected that when the day came that reading was effortless, then my Dutch language learning would really accelerate.  Vocabulary would build by association; grammar through repetition.  There would  be news to discuss, references to share in conversation.  Context and colloquialisms would color my world.

But, damn it, I’m not finding that facility with reading and listening is helping my writing and speaking as much as I hoped.  Finding the words, composing a sentence, conjugating and adding –e appropriately, running the pronunciation, then saying something, is still a enormous task.  So, too often, I fall to using shortcuts.  I re-use a few familiar words (gaan, in particular) because I know the tenses and constructions associated with it.

So, I‘ve embarked on a Tom Swiftie project.

Tom Swift was a boy genius in 50’s literature, famous for not being able to simply “say” anything.    The author refused to use the word ‘said’, so Tom ‘exclaimed’, ‘cried’, ‘joked’, ‘expanded’ in endless variety.  It spawned a series of sequential puns, known as Tom Swifties:

• "I might as well be dead," Tom croaked.
• "We just struck oil!" Tom gushed.
• "It's freezing," Tom muttered icily.

So, point being, I’m making conscious effort to find equivalent alternatives for my go-to words.  So, for gaan, perhaps vertrekken, lopen, or bezoeken.  For gooien, maybe werpen, smijten, slingeren.  There are useful sites to help find synonyms and antonyms in Dutch, and teasing out the shades of meaning in my van Dale is becoming a bedtime wandelen.

I’ll give myself bonus points if I can make a real Swiftie in Dutch– so far they’ve been few and far between.

And, yes, I was a huge Tom Swift Jr. fan growing up.  No surprise: science, engineering, travel, adventure?  It was the future to me.

Weekend reading

The headphones are off as the last call ends; I’ve pushed back from the table and started to think about the weekend.  The sun is shining across the Maas into unsettled skies, and the streets are filling with people looking for a bite and a biertje.

It’s been a good day.

I read an article today that asked, rhetorically, What is the second most useful language? Globalists would make the case for Chinese or Arabic, romanticists might prefer French or Japanese.  But for most people, “None” is the right answer: if you speak English, you don’t need anything else.

The author argues that the right answer is “Any language”.   So that you know what your colleagues, fellow conference delegates and negotiators are going through, how tiring their working days are and how impressive their linguistic accomplishment is. 

I agree with the sentiment: the Dutch make languages look deceptively easy and I’ll speed up thoughtlessly if I’m not sensitive to their effort.  Similarly, forced encounters with immigration services drives appreciation of the difficulties of the process and the bad feelings it evokes.  Immersion in a liberal (or xenophobic)  politics, in austere (or socialist) economies, teaches concrete lessons of human costs and benefits that no commentator conveys.

But I don’t agree with the article’s rationale.  There is an intrinsic value in being able to directly appreciate how natives capture a thought or express a feeling,what words and metaphors they choose.  Fluency means membership in the community, access to goods and services, awareness of what’s going on around me.  Language skills are important.

What does it take to learn a language, or cultural norms, and social skills?  Gladwell’s 10,000 hours of practice?  Josh Kaufman argues in The First 20 Hours that a level of proficiency can be achieved in far less time.

Nobody can become an expert in a few days, but the point is that you can become good enough to enjoy a new skill.  It takes “Deliberate practice”: a plan and a focus.  He suggests choosing a project you love; focusing your energy on just one skill at a time; making time for practice; and emphasizing quality over speed.

For my Dutch, the structure comes from a workbook or an online course: I can see real improvement when I do it regularly without distraction, and then force myself to use what I learned in public.   I’m a great believer in ‘giving things a go’, in the honor of trying even when your performance isn’t very good.

Europeans don’t tend to work that way.  A Dutch farmer once told me that he doesn’t ski at all because he didn’t have the time to master it.  If you can’t learn it properly, don’t learn it half-way.  A British neighbor told me over tea that she gave up foreign travel because going to new places without time to read up on the country and culture, without having time to spend immersed and expatriate, was just too superficial and frustrating.

It seems to me that you miss a lot of life that way.

I went to Dutch today with a clipping to read and discuss out loud.  Paulien Cornelisse writes a Friday column for NRC-Next on the peculiarities of language, and Dutch in particular.  Today’s writing explored the simple, subtle word Zitten.  “Do we overuse the word ‘sit’ because our culture does so much of it,” she asks, “Do Brazilians overuse ‘dance’?”  I wonder.

Yet its interesting how many of her apologetic examples parallel (US) English usage.  Its fun to be able to debate with my Dutch teacher whether there is a difference between something that sticks to the wall (an action) and something that sits on it (a result).

And it’s good to find that the statement “Jongedame, niet aan de knopjes van het fornuis zitten!” has no blushing subtext, that iets sjieks means “something fancy”, not “something sexy”.

It’s a good weekend, therefore, to go out and read something.

Een redelijk onschuldige handeling

I didn’t get to bed until late last night.  The long Easter weekend allows for some uninterrupted quiet time to catch up with a few big jobs, so I was hunched at my desk until midnight, summarizing data for an upcoming anesthesiology meeting, preparing my first quarter VAT returns, and getting business cards scanned into my address book.

All delightful jobs, to be sure.

Which I why I laid in for a rare hour of idleness this morning, avoiding work, reading Youp van ‘t Hek’s collection of essays, Klein Gelijk, and listening to This Week in Google.

Yes, the two are incongruous, but they will come together in a moment.

No, if you were here, I would be more likely to be making buttered-eggs with lemon for breakfast instead of reading.

And, yes, I work too hard.

So, I’m reading Bejaardengevangenis (the title’s irony is not lost on me)  when Gina Trapani chirps in my ear that good things are happening with Google Translate.  I’m way ahead of you, I smiled, having previously blogged that Dutch dictionaries could now be downloaded for offline use.

If you speak a sentence it can translate it, transcribe it, and say it, corrected Gina.

No way.  I pulled up Translate on my Nexus.

“I go to the store”.  Ik ga naar de winkel, immediately returned, along with a credible verbalization.

“I’m going to be late for my meeting.” Ik kom te laat voor mijn afspraak.

“I’m looking for a book of postmodern philosophy.”  Ik ben op zoek naar een boek van postmoderne filosofie.

My tablet was pulling ahead of me now.  I felt a bit like the Swiss AI researcher in The Fear Index who discovers that his computer has become smarter than he is.

I reversed the languages.

“Ik ga naar de winkel.”  I go to the store.

“Het gevolg van een redelijk onschuldige handeling,” reading from ‘t Hek.  Gibberish returned.

I fiddled with the pronunciation, word by word.  I spoke with too much o, not enough u on onschuldige, not enough separation between words, wrong syllable emphasis on handeling.

Bit by bit, it fell into place.

It’s no substitute for a good teacher, but it’s not far from being a fantastic interactive learning tool.  And it’s all free.

And with the morning’s fun concluded, I’m off to sample my Paasbrood…

After the ball was over

I was putting away the study materials this evening, finding the surface of the table again beneath all of the Dutch books and study sheets.  The green  book, the red book, the grammar book, the dictionary.  It all served pretty well; 'going forward, it will be important to keep this momentum.

Besides, I’m actually enjoying reading more and more of the Metro each morning on the train.

Lezen en Luisteren was today, two hours each for the NT2-I test in Eindhoven.  The reading test was relaxed and enjoyable – the texts were interesting and the 40 multiple-choice questions straightforward.  Workplace issues again dominated, Repetitive Stress injury, smoking policies, and, my favorite, the virtues of a 32 hour work week. 

Imagine if workers had time to spend the money they earn, time to study and train and improve, time with family, time without stress.

Contrast that with calls for longer workdays, shorter vacations, deferred pensions.

Consider, if a bakery has to make 30 cakes, is there greater social good in having six workers make five cakes each, or five making six each?

It was interesting to think about – the sort of argument that we should have, conservative vs. progressive, in the US but never do.

The Listening test was less about listening than about strategy.  The speaker reads a text setting up a scenario: a woman is getting a new kitchen, or a man is describing work in a travel bureau.  There is text describing the question to be asked and three possible answers.  There is a 20-second period to study the question and answers, then there is a fast, jumbled interview to listen to.  Essentially, I would think about how to recognize any of the three answers, then listen for that part of the interview. 

So, for example, the question “How does the travel agent know which destinations are popular”, had three possible answers: Customers, Destination countries, Travel Agent Organizations.  The response described the various surveys that are available through professional societies, no mention of Landen and only a brief reference to Klanten. 

So, C.

At the end, I think I probably did well on Reading, then Writing, then Listening, and, dismally, Speaking. It will be weeks before I know the scores (and I’m under no illusions), but it leads to a new dilemma.

I’m close to passing on three of these, although there’s a huge gap with Spreken.  Ego is already chanting You Can Do This…  Imagine if I did.

But, seriously, I don’t need this.  I need A2, a permanent visa, a path to running my business with more certainty.  The safe and sane course is to take the Korte Vrijstellingstoets and, if I fail it the Inburgeringsexamen.  And never to go near NT2-I again.

But where’s the pride in scraping across with a dishonorable A2? 

But where’s the honor in bashing myself against NT2-I out of pride?

I definitely need to get a grip: two full days of language exams, weeks of studying, has left me a bit fried.

Metro published a lovely little article that I was reading on the train this morning about how to become a miljonair:

1. Word ondernemer  (Become an entrepreneur )
2. Werk hard  (Work hard)
3. Leef als een vrek  (Live like a miser)
4. Een kwestie van mazzel   (Have good luck)

This is a toets that I can pass.

Naar mijn toets

I’ve been laying into the Dutch lessons over the past week.  There’s not really any expectation that I can pass the NT2-I test, but I’m going to give it my best effort. 

In some ways, it reminds me taking the driving test when I was 16.  I aced the written part, but the road test was pretty grim first time out.  I signaled wrong, hit the curb parking, generally got flustered and defensive in traffic.  The second time was almost perfect, ‘third was the charm.

We are allowed three tries at the Dutch Proficiency exam each year, so there’s similar stakes here.  Pass what I can, get acquainted with the routine, be properly ready the next time around.   So, Day 1 (schriven, spreken) rolled in today.  And, as with the driver’s test, it was mostly good, only partly disastrous.

The test is administered at an exam center across from the Eindhoven rail station.  Check-in was gratifyingly straightforward: join the right line and get a locker for your computer and mobile phone, then wait to be called.  There were lots of trashy pulp magazines in Dutch to read.   There were also a lot of students, mostly for the inburgering exam, overwhelmingly female, middle-aged, scarved, and optimistic.  I suspect that most prepared more single-mindedly than I did.

Again, I regretted that I was among the four taking the NTT2-I exam and not the A2 as I should have. 

Next time…the right test.

We got called in at 10 to begin the writing test.  There were two sub-tests, each an hour long with a 10 minute break between. I was surprised that both a Dutch and Dutch/English dictionary were allowed.  The proctor spoke flawlessly clear Dutch – I understood every word.  Confidence was building

The first test was short answer, most of the 13 questions were relentlessly focused on finding and holding a job.  Write an email to a colleague, explain an absence, send advice to the director, ask a neighbor to *please* give her cat to the vet next time she goes on vacation.

The second test was essay: only three questions.  Sort out a vacation schedule where everyone gets three weeks off in summer but there must be two people I the store at all times (I was still marveling that there was a mandatory three weeks) .  Write an article for the newspaper about your work as an animal keeper (using all of the pictures), telling what you find best, worst, and most interesting about your job.  Explain to the director why you are too busy to finish your work (using the pictures) and propose a solution.

The nice thing about the writing test was that I was actually pretty close to being able to do it.

Not so the 1-hour speaking test an hour later.

I expected that we’d be asked to parrot sentences: instead we were given 13 short and 10 long scenarios.  Each had a question followed by 20-40 seconds to respond.  I understood the scenario and the question without a problem, but framing and composing an answer was completely beyond me in 20 seconds.

Helplessly, question after question streamed by.  I was acutely aware of the woman behind me speaking and the proctors listening.  I was failing big-time. 

So, as it ended I took off the headphones and said “I quit”, and got up to leave.  The proctor struggled, in Dutch, to tell me to stay and put the headphones back on.  I struggled, in English, to say I’d had enough and was out of here.

I had thought that the lady behind the desk with headphones was getting ready to have conversations.  It turned out that they were only asking me to check that my name had been properly recorded.

I was completely freaked and only wanted *out*.  Nu.

In the end, we sorted it (in Dutch), but I was upset with myself and with the whole process.   It’s clear where my future study has to focus: korte vragen en antwoorden.

Two more tests tomorrow: lezen en luisteren.  Those should be fine, fingers crossed that I don’t do something foolish.

Again.

I have to reflect that, as Americans, we have absolutely no idea of what it means to be an immigrant.  And that’s ironic for a nation that was founded on the idea.

And it’s damn hard sometimes.

At least I have my 2013 IND process complete, and (during the lunch break) got my new residence card in hand.

Naar de toets

After a week of debate with the college, I’ve given in and agreed to schedule a NT2 language exam.  I’m very concerned about the overall implications of this move, coming right in the middle of my annual visa renewal with IND.

I want to (and plan) to take the exam: the only issue is timing.  The college cut me off their resources over the summer and I had to craft an alternative program with a private teacher, exam prep workbooks, and online / streaming resources.   That has all made a big difference in my vocabulary, grammar, comprehension, and confidence, but I’m no way yet prepared for a real NT2 exam.

So the questions come down to requirements and risks.  From the college’s standpoint, they want to get paid so they want me to take the test, regardless of outcome.  From the government’s standpoint, they want to see that I’m willing, if not able to learn the language.  From the IND standpoint, there is no alternative to passing a language exam to get permanent residence (except that is waived for over-65’s).

The literal requirement is that I pass the A2 Europese Referentiekader voor Moderne Vreemde Talen.  The key is “A2”, a level of proficiency that I am probably pretty close to now (contrasted with B2, the requirement for University attendance.  The risks of not passing seem to be that I would have to take the exam again (although it’s not clear if I get credit for the sections I am able to pass), while the risks of not attending could be much more severe.

So, I’ve sent in my passport and bank number and have been scheduled for Nov 12-13 in Eindhoven.  Six weeks: a lot of lezen en luisteren lies ahead.

Automatic Dutch text translation

Most days, I take at least a half hour to read a Dutch newspaper or magazine:  they fill waiting rooms and are accessible online.  The stories are about familiar things and are pitched close to my reading level.  I keep my Prisma-miniwoordenboek handy and drill down into unfamiliar sentences after a first pass.

But online translation tools are getting better and becoming integrated into everyday applications.  Google Chrome has started pitching up web page translations, and my recent computer upgrade brought me in contact with Microsoft’s tools.  They haven’t replaced my wordbooks but they are improving fast.

So, ‘my quick overview and comparison.

Chrome bases its tool on Google Translate,  my first choice for quick text translation.  The browser senses the language and repaints a fully translated page: original text appears as I mouse over passages.  There are options to see alternative translations or to offer a corrected phrasing to improve the engine.

Babylon and Interglot have free plug-in extensions for Chrome, but they don’t seem to bring any extended function or accuracy.  Similar tools are available for Firefox and IE, but I don’t use the browsers daily.

 

Babylon is the best pop-up dictionary since you can add all three van Dale handbooks.  Version 9 offers an improved text translation window,  but you have to cut and paste content.

Microsoft Word has a translator built-in: I didn’t realize it until I read a tutorial at How-to-geek.  The tools are found in the Review tab and include a full translator and a mini-popup translator for individual words.  Microsoft uses it’s own Translator by default, although you can change it to use WorldLingo.

Word’s Dutch Language Pack is a 23 euro add-on, available for download through the Microsoft Store. I purchased a copy: it does a good job of correcting spelling but lacks thesaurus, grammar, and proofing tools, so is very underpowered compared to the English toolset.

To compare the four offerings, I gave each the  same short paragraph from De Dagblad Limburger about construction progress on the A2: Onteigenen van flats bij A2 mag.

De rechtbank is akkoord met het onteigenen van de laatste 23 flats aan het A2-tracé, nodig voor de ondertunneling van de autoweg door Maastricht-Oost. Het algemene belang van de Nederlandse staat en de gemeente weegt zwaarder dan dat van de eigenaren.

The four results:

Google Translate: The court agrees with the expropriation of the last 23 flats on the A2 route, necessary for tunneling under the highway through Maastricht East. The general interest of the Dutch state and the municipality outweighs that of the owners.

Babylon 9: The Court agreed with the expropriate platform flats of the last 23 in the A2-trace, necessary for the tunnelling of motorway Maastricht-Oost. The general interest of the Dutch state and the municipality weighs heavier than that of the owners.

WorldLingo: The court is agreed with expropriating the last 23 flats to A2-tracé, necessary for the ondertunneling of the motorway by Maastricht-Oost. The public interest of weighs the Dutch state and the municipality more heavily than that of the owner eigenaren.

Microsoft Translator:  The Court is in agreement with the expropriate of the last 23 flats to the A2-tracé, needed for the tunnelling from the motorway through Maastricht-East. The general interest of the Dutch state and the municipality weighs heavier than that of the owners.

Google Translate and the Microsoft Translator produced the most readable English, although all were able to extract the main ideas. Difficult vocabulary, tenses, and grammar all compromise accuracy, and detailed semantics are easy to lose as a result.

These tools can be useful, but obviously can get in the way of learning a language yourself.  I use them optionally, to check what I think I understand or to make a pass over Dutch that I’ve written.

Otherwise (and especially in the waiting rooms), it’s my well-thumbed Prism.

Disclaimer:  I have purchased and used all products mentioned in this article; I have neither been asked nor incented to make any comments.

Life’s paintball games

Paintballing with Hezbollah describes western journalists’ attempt to understand the Lebanese military situation by engaging in, well, a paintball skirmish under a Beirut shopping mall.  It’s pretty good reading: unsurprisingly the terrorists cheat, bringing in flash grenades and capturing journalists for human shields (I’m not making this up).  Still, the journalists battle to a draw and get their insights (distasteful as some of it is).

I feel a bit the same way this this week, taking on two of my favorite shibboleths: Health insurance and Dutch lessons.

The health insurance crisis was precipitated by letters from our provider saying a) they were still struggling with the coding of a claim from my surgery in Lugano three years ago, and b) that they were going to drop my daughter off of our health insurance at the end of the month.

Now, I’ve spent years exchanging mail and engaging with my long suffering Italian friends to facilitate BCBSs claims processing for Lugano.  My daughter had the misfortune to graduate college, at which point she become ineligible for my policy.

And I pay these folks $2500 / month, out of my own earnings, for this abuse.

I think we found solutions: the Swiss can’t find any outstanding claims and my daughter is continuing as a full time student, but we were honestly facing collectors and Medicaid, respectively.  I ended up returning to the new Affordable Care Act (ACA) to see what happened to the maxim that dependent children stay on policies until they are 26.

The act makes interesting reading: there is nothing in there that should raise anyone’s ire.  Even free-market Forbes calls it “little more than a successful effort to put an end to some of the more egregious health insurer abuses while creating an environment that should bring more Americans into programs that will give them at least some of the health care coverage they need”.

It is amazing (and stupid) that people should be so viscerally opposed to this law when they more likely support every policy buried inside it.

My year of Dutch study hasn’t produced stellar outcomes either.  I’m unquestionably better (and accelerating), but it takes time and persistence.  The inburgering has turned out to be wholly impractical, focused on job-search skills and classroom-centered.  Last night I found that my access to the online tutorials had been cancelled, six months ahead of expiration.

What (I think) I need is a way to have more conversations, in writing and in person, to supplement my reading newspapers and listening to broadcasts.  Friends have lives too: it’s not practical to impose hours of practice on them.  But I chanced onto an instructor who charges 7.50euro per hour to just sit and talk, correcting pronunciations and engaging in spontaneous give-and-take.

It’s working out very well.  When I’m in Maastricht, I go see her daily.  Otherwise, we write emails each evening.  Sometimes there’s a structured assignment, other times a discussion of a news story.  But it’s giving me a good leg up on composing a thought and expressing it, the hardest thing I’ve struggled with.

I think I must be the only American who comes to the Netherlands and pays for an hour with a Dutch woman just so that I can talk with someone.  My friends joke that it’s an over-50 thing.

A couple of other resources to consider (I buy and use all three myself, nobody asked or induced me to write this):  None are particularly expensive, all have demo modes that you can use for free to try the product.

 

vTrain:  A flashcard trainer – you can load it with your own word lists and oefenen, oefenen, oefenen.

Verbix: This is a web-based or desktop verb conjugation tool, great for composing zin using toen instead of dan.

Babylon:  A pop-up desktop translator that includes all three Van Dale handbooks.

And, as a bonus, Scientific American reports that translating a problem into another language may improve the quality of decision-making.

Okay, back to life’s paintball games…

And on the language learning…

My Dutch administrator send me a note to tell me that the results of two of my three tests were in – she hadn’t received the third yet but remain at the same level for Listening and Reading.  There’s no indication of my scores or whether I’m moving within a series of tests within a level, just a reminder that my 18-month  limit is not far off and I should keep improving.

The tests were easy: unless I got careless picking from the multiple-choice boxes, I should have done fine.  I followed up to ask about the scores and thresholds but was told that I’m being handed off to a new administrator.

Similarly, when I visited the Gemeente, I found that my new administrator (January) had handed me off to another new administrator (March).  This fellow apologized for not answering calls: he spontaneously took a few days off because the weather was nice.  “I like not working,” he smiled.  Wouldn’t we all.

I find it all very frustrating.

The Daily Dutch commitment was yielding solid progress in Reading (I read the FD and Volkskrant daily) and Writing (I know most of the words I need).  When I ride the train, I read the Metro, de Pers, or the Spits: there was a charming story that I really enjoyed today without having to refer to a dictionary.  Listening and speaking are lagging, but I’m increasing my diet of radio, television, podcasts, and time with neighbors.

I’m increasingly  concerned that there is a gap between these activities and the content of the test.  The college is heavily oriented towards learning social norms and finding a job; the  test questions all dealt with getting along with neighbors and getting job interviews.  My daily interactions are with doing software design and discussing politics.  It’s different vocabulary and audience, and maybe they don’t overlap.

My Dutch neighbor tells me not to fight the system.  Stop reading the newspapers and start learning the classroom primers.  Stop having conversations with businessmen and start having dialogs with shopkeepers. Do more practice tests; focus on the portfolios.

I’ll try. It does make it hard to stay motivated, though.

The Dutch Practice Test

At New Years, my course administrator and I worked out a new system for my attendance in Dutch classes for 2012: she would tell me what the class was doing each week and I would stride along in parallel on my own.  When in the country, I would rejoin the class, and periodically I would take a test to assure that I was keeping up.

So I received notice that my first oefening toets would be this afternoon.  I’d sit for a 3-hour test covering writing, reading, and listening; speaking was not included.  My friends all bet that I could never pass “Listening” just because I never do (listen).  The college had me pegged at A1 listening and A2 reading/writing based on my intake evaluations  a year ago: my guess (hope) is that passing the test will bump me up one skill level across the board.

This isn’t a test that I can really study for.  Either the daily hours of Dutch are making a difference or they aren’t.  Instead, I spent the morning working with the group finalizing my product prototype, then biked home for a quick lunch and packed for the train to London.  I biked back to the school at 1 and joined the milling crowd in the cafeteria waiting to be called for their evaluations.

It didn’t start well.  We were half an hour late getting started and then I found that I’d drifted into the Werk-traject test  rather than the Exam-traject.  Eventually, I arrived for the 1-hour test 40 minutes behind the rest of the class: the proctor gave me the spiral-bound exam book and told me to do my best.

The Writing test wasn’t too bad: completing examples representative of evryday life in the Netherlands.

Your neighbor leaves her garbage outside where it gets knocked over and is never home for you to talk with her.  Leave her a note telling her the right thing to do.

Five computers were stolen from your place of work.  Fill in the attached police report.

Easy enough, although not characteristic of my Dutch experiences.  I finished in half an hour and headed over to Reading.

Both Reading and Listening are computer-based multiple choice tests, one practice question then twenty exam questions.  Unfortunately, reading the FD, the Volkskrant, and Rosetta is not good preparation for the very focused vocabulary found in this section.  Each question consisted of a one-paragraph story and several questions about it’s content – the topics were monotonous:

Read this job advertisement, then determine who you are interviewing with and for what job.

Read this account of your day at work, then explain to your supervisor why you had to fill in for your co-worker.

Read this notice and identify the proper procedure for calling your employer to say that you are sick.

My advice: know the noun baan, it’s everywhere.

Listening was more conversational.  People meet on the street, exchanging pleasantries then discussing what the neighbors are doing.  (I was ready with a note about the garbage)  The danger here is in getting ahead of myself, reading read the question first, then listening for the answer.  So, if the question was Is Ruud going to the park today?, I would be tempted to stop as soon as I heard  Hey, Ruud, let’s go to the park!  when the rest of the example might be No way, it’s raining!  Lets go to the movies instead.

It took about half an hour to do each of the three tests, I stayed with first impressions and didn’t go back to change my answers.  The results are probably mailed out so I won’t know for a week or so; in the meantime, it’s back to studying would, could, and should.

Deciphering Dutch grammar

I’ve been stroking through my daily hour of Dutch, alternating sessions in Rosetta Stone with periods reading the FD or Volkskrant and listening to Klare Taal.  It’s making a difference, one seems to play off of the other, and as my writing vocabulary improves, my listening is better able to parse words from sentences.

For Rosetta, I’m on the lasts month of my subscription, so I’ve finished Level 2 and my goal is to wrap Level 3, the last series, within the next couple of weeks.  I’ll write a better review of that experience after I’m done.

Grammar remains a problem, though.  I ran in frustration to Skype the other day to try to sort the difference between dezelfde and hetzelfde with a Dutch friend: they both mean “the same” in sentences, but its impossible to try to sort out which to use when from looking at examples.  (As with so many things, it turns out to depend on whether the noun is de- or het-.)

My go-to guide for grammar has always been Shetter’s Dutch, an Essential Grammar. I have the orange 9th version (2007), well battered, well studied: the Nuns in Vucht insisted we get a copy.  (Aside: Doesn’t it seem a bit baffling why there should be nine versions?).  But on questions like this one, it’s not much help.

Searching Google for answers, I stumbled across Fehringer’s Reference Grammar of Dutch, which I am really liking.  The points are well-organized, clear, and concise, and it’s a quick job to look up a point while working through.

Neither is good for casual reading, but both are worthwhile supplements to a self-study program with Rosetta, Delft, or other methods.

Disclaimer: As always, these are products that I bought and used: my opinions are my own and I have neither been asked nor compensated to write these comments.

English-Dutch translation challenges

One of my Cambridge professors sent out an intriguing question last week.  Shares in a biotech firm, Ablynx, had dropped 20% after an English-language interview with their CEO, Dr. Edwin Moses (left), was published in Dutch by the Belgian newspaper De Tijd.  Ablynx claims that the translation misrepresented Moses’ remarks, posting their original English and the newspaper’s Dutch versions of the interview on their web site.  De Tijd stands by their translation.

Dr. Bains’ question: ‘Was the translation accurate?”  A close Dutch friend took a look for us, and her opinion was

The translation is indeed more negative and apologizing then the original. The Dutch choice of words and answers seem like an apology, while in the English document the words are more an explanation. There are no real "false" translations, but the English article gives opportunity, the Dutch gives more ideas of possible failure.

Words matter.  But an upcoming Cambridge seminar, Translation and Figurative Meaning, argues that a correct interpretation depends on more: both the words and context must be right.

Following on from an example by Geach, I gave Google Translate a statement about a local tavern: The Duke of Cambridge sells beer.  It’s Dutch equivalent is “De hertog van Cambridge verkoopt bier.”: Cambridge is a place where the Duke sells beer.

Context also matters.

Occasionally, Dutch friends ask me to review translated texts to assure that they are in “proper English”.  (Let’s set aside the question of whether Americans speak proper English at all).  Often, I find myself wrestling with similar questions of language, context, and intent.

Here’s a real example: the original text is

The degree to which an individual succeeds in developing his personal quality depends on motivation and will power on the one hand, and the opportunities provided by the environment on the other. Willing is thus not the same as being able, but with a bit of good will, much can be achieved, as long as there is a setting in which this is really possible.

My first attempt at a rewrite was

The degree to which an individual succeeds in developing his talents depends on intrinsic motivation and will power, and on opportunities provided by the environment. Being willing to develop is, unfortunately, not the same as being able. But those who are willing can achieve when placed into a setting that enables their talent to develop.

What’s wrong with this rewrite?  I was trying to think too deeply about the author’s meaning, not just about the correctness of his language.  So I ended up rewriting to the extent that I injected my own beliefs and understandings, obscuring the author’s original intent.

I literally started over with a blank page:

The degree to which an individual succeeds in developing his talent depends on their motivation and will power on the one hand, and on the opportunities provided in their environment on the other. Being willing to change is thus not the same as being able: setting combines with motivation to create a context in which development is really possible.

Maybe better?  I didn’t get any feedback.  But it made me think hard about how I do my markups.  And, on reflection, this sort of editing operates on three levels of personal agreement that are also relevant to translation.

1) Correctness: Fixing errors in spelling and syntax. So, his personal quality becomes his personal qualities.

2) Clarity: Resolving ambiguous words to solidify the meaning of a sentence.  So his personal qualities becomes his talents.

3) Agreement: I disagree that talent development depends only on motivation, will power (the same thing as motivation), and environment.  What about ability, educations, social and economic status…

It took a real effort for me to set aside the third and focus just on the first two, and even in just trying to clarify I needed to keep asking myself if I understood the author’s viewpoint.

I don’t think that De Tijd deliberately tried to inject bias into their translation of the interview.  But it’s apparent that their word choices altered the color of the text, changing the reader’s perceptions even as they attempted to preserve the author’s.  It’s a very tricky thing to get right.

As Google Translate reminds me daily (yes, this is real).

Snow, Dutch, and the IB

I saw the first word on the US news services, then the BBC picked up the story.  Seattle, a maritime city that usually gets a dusting of snow for a day before it gets washed off in rain the next day, was in for a storm.  It’s been over 20 years since the last snowfall like this: it always meant toppled rhodies, downed power lines, and cancelled school and work schedules.  This year was no exception.  The good news is that the 7KW gas generator we installed after the 2007 storms forges through the worst weather, and there are no kids in school any more (although Karen still teaches) .

As predicted, six to 14 inches fell, depending on wind patterns, and the city ground to a halt.  The best story came from my neighbor, Mike: Today, as I was snowboarding, my dog was chasing me. We collided. We rushed him to the vet. Now he's in a cast. That's right. My dog is in a cast due to a snowboarding accident.

We haven’t seen any snow in either Maastricht or Cambridge so far this season.  The Alps are buried, having a wonderful ski season this year and burying the higher villages, but it hasn’t drifted north through the low countries at all.  So, rather than skidding through the streets as I was last year at this time, I’ve been gradually wrapping up engineering and in-town activities, catching up with friends in the evenings.  There have been several new arrivals over the holidays and it’s delightful to get to meet the new family members – hard to believe that mine were ever this small.

I’ve also taken inspiration from the IamExpat post Yes! 2012 can bring fluent Dutch!  The core of the article is that you have to build and keep momentum.  That means daily practice, not weekly, and sustaining it over months.  I have the materials at hand, I have to pass by the end of the year to keep my promise to the Gemeente who is paying for my lessons and the opportunity to nail the permanent residency.  (Side story –happy ending: After 7 months, IND has finally sent me the letter to come to Eindhoven and pick up the new card from my 2011 visa renewal). 

So I’m spending an hour or so a day streaking through the end of the Rosetta course that I was given three months to finish.  It’s hard to learn vocabulary and grammar only by example, but with a word book and grammar book at my side, I’m deeply enmeshed with subordinate clauses, word order, and tenses this week.

I’ve also found a great set of podcasts on the RNW (Radio Nederland Wereldomroep) site.  Klare Taal is particularly good; I access it through the exercise bike (which has web access built in) or download it to my music player each day.

And the Welkom in Nederland book arrived, the vocabulary is pretty basic, so there’s no problem with reading and picking up the ideas. They match a lot of my experiences anyway (except for taking kids to “zit op” basisschool and middelbare school - they don’t “studeert aan” school until they get to the University).

So, it’s moving ahead well.  The only issue is that an hour or two spend on Dutch is an hour or two away from something else: the day is a zero-sum schedule.  “Prioritize” doesn’t mean “Finding what to do first”, it means “Letting go of what I won’t have time to do.”  I used to hate it when our corporate VP told me “Dave,Strategic Planning is deciding what not to do.”, but I’m finding that there’s some truth in it after all.

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Separately, while thumbing the news, I found that the International Baccalaureate program is the latest institution to come under conservative attack in the US.  The IB program, available to qualified students in many public districts, intended to “develop the intellectual, personal, emotional and social skills to live, learn and work in a rapidly globalizing world.”  No less a newsmagazine than US News and World Report has determined that critic al thinking and cultural awareness “Undermines US Founding Principles”.

A curriculum crafted in Europe, with a decidedly non-American and non-Judeo-Christian outlook on the world…not merely to impart knowledge or teach thinking skills, but rather to develop "citizens of the world" with "universal human values."… —presumably including activities not endorsed by the United States.

I think I need to stick with the weather pages.  Or MasterChef.

Learning Dutch - Flikken Maastricht

I visited my Dutch college this week to try to get my inburgering back on track.  The past couple of months has been hard on the daily time that I set aside to work on my language skills, and I’d fallen badly out of sync with classwork.

I’ve been able to continue reading and writing: most of the Dutch newspapers and radio stations are available on the Internet, and I spend time daily reading selections and writing about them to a Dutch friend.

New words go onto a growing vocabulary list that I can drill through VTrain, a flashcard trainer that is easy to set up with Dutch-English pairs.

The War of the Week with Rosetta Stone ended in a draw – they refused to renew my subscription but gave me a three month free preview of the new TOTALe course, with progressive drills and live chat.  I’ve started working through the exercises again but still need to see how the studio sessions work.

The problem is the listening and speaking, more mundane conversational skills.  My administrator stresses that there is no way to pass NT2 without regular and focused Dutch language presentations and conversations.

I do bi-weekly Skype chats with Dutch friends, which helps, but would like something that I can watch and follow more often. There’s limited availability of Dutch television outside of the Netherlands, but some shows have been serialized and can be obtained on DVD or BitTorrent.

Such is Flikken Maastricht, a police drama set along the otherwise placid Maas.  It’s got a bit of a Hill Street Blues feel at the intro (being from Chicago, I can appreciate that):

Title and intro–Flikken Maastricht

In it, Wolf and Eva sport fashion worthy of Miami Vice, zip around town in tiny police cars and big speedboats, and hyperlink around familiar venues connected by imaginary alleys.  It’s all good fun.

The stories are familiar, so the Dutch is understandable – I never really get lost and can always pick up the thread if I lose a few words.

 

And, here, Wolf sits and broods outside of my old apartment.  The bench actually never existed here (it would be nice if it had), but my bicycle’s been parked at that same spot countless times…

… and in unusual ways.