Dutch Summer School 2017

It's the last day of Dutch Summer School. Two weeks ago I arrived in Westerbork not knowing what to expect. Today I'm leaving knowing it was a time well spent. Not only have I learned quite a bit of Dutch, but I've also met some great people along the way. Dutch Summer School is a great concept and no wonder it's getting more and more popular year by year. When I was first signing up, I was really tempted to do the course in their Amsterdam location, because Amsterdam seemed to be much more interesting than a small country town in Drenthe. I ended up booking Drenthe location, simply because it was significantly cheaper. I am so glad I did. I do admit that the location wasn't the most interesting, but that's precisely why I liked it so much. I could really focus on learning Dutch and didn't have to worry about all the distractions I'd surely face in Amsterdam. The other great thing about Drenthe location is the social side of the course. You share a hou

Today's evening was probably my favorite event during the whole Dutch Summer School. Bart has organized a performance by a Dutch actor. Orvelte, a historical museum village 4km away from where we are based, was chosen for the performance. At 7pm we all set off. Some people traveled by car, me and 10 or so other people decided to cycle. It was a beautiful and relaxing ride through the typical Dutch countryside. The basic scene was set under a huge tree and we all sat around in anticipation. The setting was really blissful and the weather was just perfect for this kind of event. The title of the play was "Martin and Marieke" - the characters from the Heb je zien  YouTube series Bart has created for his Learndutch.org website - which we all thought was very funny. But of course, the true story was that of Romeo and Juliet. The performance was obviously in Dutch, but the actor was translating bits and pieces into English. But in all honesty, the transaction wasn't rea

My class finished at midday today and my tomorrow's class is not starting until 1.30pm, so I put my hand up when some girls from my group asked who wanted to join them on a trip to Giethoorn. It's a small village about 50km west of Westerbork. They call it Small Venice of the North because there are no roads there, only canals. After about 50min of driving, we got to our destination. As we entered the village, our jaws dropped to the floor. It looked like a place taken out of a fairytale, with the cutest houses you can think of, grass in the most intense shade of green, blooming flowers and of course the canals. The canals looked irresistible, so we obviously had to go on a boat trip. After a quick chat (in Dutch!) with the ticket guy we got on the boat and set off to explore the area. The canals were very busy with other vessels, boating being something that pretty much every tourist visiting the village does. According to our tour guide there over 900 boats available for

I knew this day would come. It always does. When you focus all your attention on and dedicate all your energy to one thing this day is inevitable. You know it will come so you anticipate it, but you are never too sure when it will happen. And when it happens it still comes as a bit of a shock. I call this day the "I feel so stupid" day. I had it today. Just when I thought I was making progress, that my Dutch was improving, that I was able to have a conversation and understand quite a bit, I got the "I feel so stupid day". It usually happens when you pick up a new, a bit more complex subject. In my case it was the irregular verbs in past tens. It's not that I didn't know they existed and got surprised. I knew about them and knew they were coming, but they still broke me. I don't even know why, because it's not like it's the hardest part of the Dutch grammar. Yes, there are many of them and I need to learn them by heart, but I have known ab

I started to learn Dutch a bit over a year ago, when I decided I wanted to live in the Netherlands. I was living in Australia at the time. With all the other languages I've tried to learn over the years (Russian, French, English, Spanish) I used conventional methods - books, dictionary and language instructors. When researching options for learning Dutch in Australia I quickly realized it wasn't going to be as easy as learning more popular languages like Spanish. There simply aren't many Dutch courses or tutors in Sydney. Those that I found very really expensive and offered classes at the most inconvenient times and locations.  I knew about Dutch Summer School, but I was 20.000km away and wasn't able to attend it back then. I had a small baby, busy job and thousand other things to attend to. So I started digging, trying to work out how to learn Dutch in a way that's convenient to me. Over the months I have found lots of very useful tools, which I'd like to sh

Learning Dutch in Drenthe is a very social experience and it is mostly because of the living arrangements. The Dutch Summer School in Drenthe is located within a lovely holiday park called Timmerholt. The part is really big, but all the students live close to each other. There are three complexes, each containing 5 holiday apartments. Each of the apartments within each complex is converted into a classroom (so we have 3 classrooms in total) and the other apartments are occupied by students. Each apartment consists of a living room with a basic but sufficient kitchen, bathroom with shower, one double room and two single rooms. So each apartment is a house to four students. Like it or not, you are always surrounded by like-minded people, who are determined to speak Dutch! The apartments are fairly basic, but at the same time, they have everything you need for those two weeks. The beds are comfortable and there is a plenty of space to sit and study. I share my house with three girl - th

The alarm clock rings at 7.15am. It's hard to leave the cosy bed, but hey - this is not a holiday. I'm here to learn Dutch, so I better use the time wisely! My classes start at 1.30pm today (we have afternoon classes for 2 days and then morning classes for the next two and it alternates through the whole course), so I have a bit of time. I make myself a pot of steaming hot tea, make myself comfortable on a couch, and get started. I first review the vocabulary from the previous days. A long time ago I discovered that vocabulary is possibly the key to speaking the language, so I put a lot of effort into increasing the number of words I know in Dutch. It doesn't matter how good my grammar is - it's quite useless if I don't know the words to put that grammar into practice. Once I'm done with the vocabulary review I jump on the first #dutchgrammar video for the upcoming class. The #dutchgrammar (also a creation of Kirsten and Bart) is an integral part of the co

Today's class was so much fun! The main topic of the lesson was Dutch birthday party and everyone got so involved in it that we ended up spending waaay too much time on it. But it was fun. So what's so weird about Dutch birthday parties? Well, based on what Kirsten told us and what some students already living in the Netherlands have already experienced, everything seems to be off. First of all, when people come over for a birthday party they don't wish a happy birthday to just the person whose birthday it is, but to everyone there! You are supposed to go around the room, shake everybody's hand and say gefeliciteerd  (which means "congratulations"). Weird? Wait, there is more. There is also an issue of food and drinks served during the party, or rather the lack of thereof. Yes, you heard it right. There is hardly any food served on a Dutch birthday party. You will get a piece of cake (just one, don't count on seconds!) and a cup of coffee and you might

My first class started at 9am today. I am in the A1/A2 group and our teacher is lovely Kirsten. The group is so multinational it's hard to believe. We have the US, Izrael, Nigeria, Russia, Belize, China, Brazil, and Poland. Nine people determined to learn and speak Dutch. The classroom is located in one of the holiday houses in the resort (I'll tell you about the resort soon!), which actually makes it quite convenient, as there is a kitchen and a bathroom just right there. We work with a book called Het Lesboek, which is the first edition of a book created especially for this course. The book looks great! Bart and Kirsten did a great job. The lesson is a mix of grammar, listening and speaking exercises. So quite standard. But one thing makes this course stand out. I attended lots of language courses over the years and the common practice was for a teacher to spend a big portion of each lesson going over grammar and explaining it. As a result, little time was left to practic

The day has come. The start of the Dutch Summer School. I have signed up for the 2-week course quite some times ago and was really looking forward to it. After all, I will be moving to the Netherlands in a few weeks, so I better get my Dutch to a decent level! The day started early, at 4am, as my flight was leaving at 7. Two hours later and I was in Eindhoven. I picked Drenthe as the location of my course, so I had to travel across big part of the Netherlands to reach my destination. I had some time to kill in Zwolle so I set to find some tradition Dutch snacks. I was in luck - I found some delicious fries with creamy mayo. How good were there! I then bought a couple of oliebollen , the Dutch version of the donut. And gosh - they were AMAZING. So, so good! With my belly filled with Dutch goodness, I boarded a train which took me to a tiny town of Beilen. 8 km further lays a holiday resort called The Timmerholt. This is where the Dutch Summer School take place each year. It seems