Just got my Rosetta Stone in the other day..

I'm familiar with LingQ and I'm will look into using it once Steve has added Dutch to the list...

 

I didn't use the latest version so I don't have that feature. I Skype with my Dutch friends once or twice a week though. Why are you learning Dutch, if you don't mind me asking? My Dutch friends tell me I should have focused on German as it would be much more useful and is somewhat similar, but I travel to the Netherlands two or three times a year and rarely travel to Germany so Dutch made more sense.

 

I'm looking forward to that addition too. Out of curiosity, have you dabbled at all in Afrikaans? I've been thinking about starting a thread to see if there are any distance Afrikaans courses.

 

I'm pretty sure if you speak fluent Dutch you can at least understand Afrikaans. Not sure there would be a lot of course offerings on Afrikaans, especially via distance.

 

I can't speak any Dutch, unfortunately. Right now, I'm trying to do some German on my own and have found that I can understand a bit of written Dutch or Afrikaans when I am already familiar with the topic. For example, after reading a Wikipedia article in English, I will change the language of the article to Afrikaans or Nederlands. As an English speaker, you may even find that you can pick up on a word here and there. Try this one out. You may understand a couple of words.

 

That's exactly what my wife just said. She is from South Africa and speaks Afrikaans.

 

Yes, I actually started dabbling with Afrikaans first, but quickly decided to switch to Dutch as I've only been to S. Africa once, and I would like to have some ability to converse with natives in a language that I have a decent chance in using!

UNISA (University of South Africa) offers a short course in Afrikaans. If you're really interested in Afrikaans, UNISA also offers a BA, Honours BA, Masters and Doctorate in Afrikaans.

 

I have to admit, at first I decided to learn Dutch after reading that it was one of the easier foreign languages for native English speakers to pick up (along with Frisian, Afrikaans and Norwegian). I'm a little gun shy in learning languages, as I've previously failed in trying to learn German, French and Spanish (not all at once!). So far, I've had a much easier time with Dutch, although the word order is tough at times.

Now that I've begun to learn the language, I've become very interested in the Dutch culture, in all its various forms. My wife and I vacation in Aruba every year (the natives their learn Dutch in school) and I have colleagues from The Netherlands. My goal is to visit The Netherlands and Belgium (especially the Flemish areas) within the next couple of years, so hopefully by that point, I will be conversant in the language.

 

Tom, could you give us a few things that you find interesting about Dutch culture? I'm not all that familiar with...anything Dutch (food, culture, history, etc.), so please educate me!

 

I know you didn't ask me, but a few things I've found; Pickled herring (disgusting, but if you visit the Netherlands you have to try it), They are the bicycle capital of the world, and they are extremely proud of the fact that they held off Germany for 3 days (YES, THREE WHOLE DAYS!!!) during world war II. Many in Amsterdam drove their cars into the canals to prevent the German military from utilizing them. I always give my Dutch friends crap about being so proud of this.
They also traded Great Britain NYC (at the time New Amsterdam) in exchange for Suriname (a small country in northern south America). They are shocked more American's don't know about this.

Oh one other thing. If you ever visit the country, go to one of the tourist trap gift shops and buy a pair of the slippers that look like wooden clogs. Laugh if you will, most comofortable pair of slippers i've ever owned

 

Well I'm jealous. I'm conversational in Russian, but I lose it quickly if I don't constantly keep up with it. I have no one to talk to, so that's a huge part of it. I would like to try and learn another one, but I'm not sure what would be the most useful overall (aside from Spanish that is).

 

One of the perks of living in Boston is flights to Europe are relatively reasonable both price and time wise.plus I have free places to stay in Amsterdam and Rotterdam so it makes for a cheap trip.

 

Sure. Most of this based upon what I have read vs. what I have seen, as I have yet to visit The Netherlands. That said, I have been to Aruba several times and there is still a strong Dutch influence on the island (mixed in with local Papiamento, Spanish/South American and US tourism influences).

Food:
Cheese - the dutch have excellent cheeses. Gouda is my favorite, edam is good (goed!) as well.
Cookies - Stroopwafels!!
I'm vegetarian, so I can't comment on all the meats/cold cuts that the Dutch enjoy.

The Arts:
Flemish/Dutch artists, such as Rembrandt and van Gogh.
Musicians such as Laura Jansen (Dutch-American, but she is bigger in Holland than the states) and of course the most famous Dutch-American musicians, Van Halen! LOL Actually, there is a lot of great Dutch indie rock that I listen to online (via streams), but I don't know the names of the artists. If you're into Indie Rock, regular Rock and Pop, the Dutch music scene is worth investigating.

Movies:
I've caught some good Dutch/Belgian films online (excellent way to learn a foreign language!). An excellent movie that I just watched a couple of months ago is Ben X (Belgian film, Dutch lang, w/ English subtitles).

And of course, the Dutch language!

I've just really started diving into Dutch Culture, so my list is fairly limited at the moment. Perhaps others can share their experiences and interests...

 

In case you're still interested, LingQ just started offering Dutch within the last week or two. Unfortunately, it is still in beta, but it is a start!

 

Cool! Dank je wel! I'll have to check it out.

 

It doesn't look like LingQ has a lot of materials yet for Dutch, but they're certainly working on it. I hope that it'll expand soon! If all else fails, I could play with Swedish, I guess! =P