Teach Yourself Beginners Dutch - Get Started in Dutch- 2 Audio CDs and 304 page Book
This book is designed for beginners of Dutch who have little or no experience in learning languages, and is structured progressively – each unit builds on the previous units so that you gradually learn new language patterns and vocabulary. Each unit is also built around a particular theme. They contain dialogues, reading texts and a variety of exercises. Explanations are given for the main grammar points and word patterns. Wherever possible, the texts and exercises have been taken from real-life situations, to help you communicate more successfully. Additional cultural information will familiarize you with life in the Low Countries and make you even more confident when speaking Dutch. Veel succes!
Table of Contents:
Introduction
Pronunciation and spelling
Unit 1: I am a nurse
Unit 2: Where do you live?
Unit 3: In the supermarket
Unit 4: She likes modern clothes
Unit 5: A lager for me, please
Unit 6: Do you go to the cinema a lot?
Unit 7: What are you going to do?
Unit 8: That's much more expensive
Unit 9: Hold on a moment, I'll just put you through
Unit 10: Come in
Unit 11: On holiday
Unit 12: At home and at work
Unit 13: Typically Dutch
Key to the exercises
Grammar summary
Dutch-English vocabulary
English-Dutch vocabulary
Index
Innovative exercises illustrate what you've learnt and how to use it. Easy to follow - the pace and approach mean that this is a course for the true beginner. The new text design makes the course even simpler to find your way around
Practical - contains lots of information about life in the Netherlands and Flanders and covers all the basic structures and vocabulary you will need for everyday situations.
Up to date - reflects life in the Netherlands and Flanders today and teaches you the language you'll need to communicate at different levels of formality
About the Authors
Gerdi Quist, co-author is a native Dutch speaker, and lecturer at University College, London.
Dennis Strik, co-author, is a part-time lecturer at the University of Kent at Canterbury and part-time postgraduate language assistant at University College, London.
About the Dutch Language
Dutch is the name of the official language spoken by more than 20 million people in the Netherlands and in Flanders, the northern part of Belgium – together they are sometimes called the Low Countries. Contrary to what many people would have you believe, particularly the Dutch, it is a relatively easy language to learn, particularly for speakers of English, because of the many similarities in vocabulary and the regularities of the language. . It is closely related to other West Germanic languages (e.g., English, West Frisian and German) and somewhat more remotely to the North Germanic languages. Dutch is a descendant of Old Frankish and is the parent language of Afrikaans, one of the official languages of South Africa and the most widely understood in Namibia. Dutch and Afrikaans are to a large extent mutually intelligible, although they have separate spelling standards and dictionaries and have separate language regulators. Standard Dutch (Standaardnederlands) is the standard language of the major Dutch-speaking areas and is regulated by the Nederlandse Taalunie ("Dutch Language Union"). Dutch is also an official language of the European Union and the Union of South American Nations.
Dutch grammar also shares many traits with German, but has a less complicated morphology caused by deflexion, which puts it closer to English. Dutch has officially three genders, masculine, feminine, and neuter, however, according to some interpretations these are reduced to only two, common and neuter, which is similar to the gender systems of most Continental Scandinavian languages.
Dutch vocabulary is predominantly Germanic in origin, considerably more so than English. This is to a large part due to the heavy influence of Norman French on English, and to Dutch patterns of word formation, such as the tendency to form long and sometimes very complicated compound nouns, being more similar to those of German and the Scandinavian languages.
The consonant system of Dutch did not undergo the High German consonant shift and has more in common with English and the Scandinavian languages. Like most Germanic languages it has a syllable structure that allows fairly complex consonant clusters. Dutch is often noted for the prominent use of velar fricatives (ch and g, pronounced at the back of the mouth), often picked up on as a source of amusement or even satire.
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