Troubles?

[kwalijkje]

Dag allemaal,
I was speaking with my grandmother last night about how difficult it is to get Dutch people, especially in Amsterdam, to talk Dutch to you. For some reason, the second that most Dutch people hear an English accent or English word they will switch to English, making attempts to talk Dutch really difficult. My nan gave me an interesting way to deal with this. Whenever someone starts talking English to her she starts speaking in a thick Cockney accent (her original accent), which most people don't understand. They're left with no other choice than to converse in Dutch.
I've yet to try this, but next time...
Maybe I'll try a northern accent, lol.

[AppelstroopIsLekker]

Ha! That's is brilliant!!! I never tried that before... I am from the Southern US, and I speak with my grandmother's local accent when I am around family or back home or whatnot, but I never though to do that with recalcitrant Dutch people.

My trick is this, and actually, I don't think it's a trick because for me it was a necessity. When I was first beginning to get to more complex sentences in Dutch beyond the "Hoe gaat het?" and "Mag ik een ______" I would simply force Dutch people to speak to me. And if they switched to English, I would still stick with Dutch.

One time, I was getting paid and the woman who gave me my check switched to English (I don't blame her because I sucked) but she proceeded to ask my questions for the next ten minutes in English and I kept replying in Dutch. And while it is slightly annoying with both parties, it helps a lot (linguistically, not so much in life maybe, if you got the wrong check or something).

But yeah, tell me how it goes, I might try it myself.

[Wim]

Ik heb van mijn cursisten vaak de klacht gehoord dat Nederlanders Engels blijven spreken. Bij wijze van grapje zeg ik altijd dat hun Nederlands pas echt goed is als de Nederlanders ophouden met Engels tegen ze te spreken.

Dutch people keeping on speaking English is a complaint I heard from many of my students. Just for fun I always tell them they're only doing really fine in Dutch once the Dutch stop speaking English to them.

Groetjes,
Wim

[snowball]

Dit is wat Daniduc doet, ook een slimme truc:

Ik spreek vloeiend engels, maar soms, als iets koop ik, zeg ik "het spijt mij, ik spreek geen engels, maar alleen Portugees. En een beetje Nederlands" Ik zeg dat alleen maar om te oefenen Ik vind het een beetje vervelend om een pond druiven te bestellen en terug horen "Do you mean five hundred grams of grapes?"

Moet je alleen geen Brazilianen tegenkomen, want dan val je door de mand! (Als je geen Portugees spreekt)

[daniduc]

Ik heb van mijn cursisten vaak de klacht gehoord dat Nederlanders Engels blijven spreken. Bij wijze van grapje zeg ik altijd dat hun Nederlands pas echt goed is als de Nederlanders ophouden met Engels tegen ze te spreken.

Dutch people keeping on speaking English is a complaint I heard from many of my students. Just for fun I always tell them they're only doing really fine in Dutch once the Dutch stop speaking English to them.

Is dat nog mogelijk? Ik hoop op een dag dat kan ik doen

[Wim]

Ja, dat is inderdaad mogelijk... Ik ken buitenlanders die gewoon in het Nederlands antwoord krijgen. Ik weet alleen niet of dat misschien de uitzonderingen zijn die de regel bevestigen !

Yes, such a thing will be possible anyway... I do know foreigners who are answered in common Dutch, though I just don't know whether they happen to be the exceptions confirming the rule !

Groetjes,
Wim

[daniduc]

Ja, dat is inderdaad mogelijk...

Leuk! Zo, Ik zal blijven studeren!

Ik ken buitenlanders die gewoon in het Nederlands antwoord krijgen. Ik weet alleen niet of dat misschien de uitzonderingen zijn die de regel bevestigen !

Maar, kunnen zij er doen in Amsterdam Centrum? That's, I think, the ultimate test (Ik ken Nederlanders die in het Engels antwoord krijgen in Amsterdam Centrum )

[kwalijkje]

Ja, dat is inderdaad mogelijk...

Leuk! Zo, Ik zal blijven studeren!

Ik ken buitenlanders die gewoon in het Nederlands antwoord krijgen. Ik weet alleen niet of dat misschien de uitzonderingen zijn die de regel bevestigen !

Maar, kunnen zij er doen in Amsterdam Centrum? That's, I think, the ultimate test (Ik ken Nederlanders die in het Engels antwoord krijgen in Amsterdam Centrum )

Pretty much the only time a Dutchman tried to talk back to me in Dutch was in the centrum, when I'd first started trying to learn Dutch. Lol. She was a chugger (charity hugger) trying to get me to sign up to whatever charity she was representing. I let her prattle on for a bit trying to figure out what she was saying, and finally said, "Het spijt me, ik spreek maar een heel klein beetje, en begrijp minder." She replied (I think), "Leuk. Het is goed dat iemand probeert onze taal te leren." And carried on trying to sell her charity in Dutch. It all got very complicated and confusing after that, but it was good to know that one person in A'dam was prepared to give my atrocious Dutch a chance.

[Jae]

Pretty much the only time a Dutchman tried to talk back to me in Dutch was in the centrum, when I'd first started trying to learn Dutch. Lol. She was a chugger (charity hugger) trying to get me to sign up to whatever charity she was representing. I let her prattle on for a bit trying to figure out what she was saying, and finally said, "Het spijt me, ik spreek maar een heel klein beetje, en begrijp minder." She replied (I think), "Leuk. Het is goed dat iemand probeert onze taal te leren." And carried on trying to sell her charity in Dutch. It all got very complicated and confusing after that, but it was good to know that one person in A'dam was prepared to give my atrocious Dutch a chance.

That is nice! I wonder if she realized she had done a good deed.

As to "ik spreek maar een heel klein beetje en begrijp minder"--does this feel as odd to you as it does to me? When it comes to written language, I'm definitely better at the passive skill (reading) than I am at the active one (writing), but when it comes to spoken language it's definitely the other way around. I can say pretty much anything I want to say now (although it won't always be correct, and it's usually still pretty choppy and broken up by ums and uhs), but I'll be damned if I still miss a good third of what people are saying. It's enough to get the jist, most of the time, but it's frustrating--and very, very strange, to be better at speaking than at understanding.

[Wim]

To me, it isn't. When you have but a limited knowledge of a foreign language, you can prepare your sentences and use the words you know, hoping to get your message across in your own simple words. And in many cases this will work. But when you're being answered, you'll just have to wait and see (hear) what words will come in your direction. So you'll have to hope and pray you can recognise them correctly (or even at all). I know this from my own experience, too: we often go to France for the holidays, and I'm usually understood correctly when I speak (my school) French, but understanding the answer is really a different thing.

The same in my professional experience: most of my students are more stressed when they have to take a listening test than when taking a speaking or even a writing test, simply because of the things I pointed out above. In practice, things usually don't turn out so bad for them, but they're always very nervous when there is a listening test ahead.

Groetjes,
Wim

[kwalijkje]

I don't find it so much strange as frustrating. I can decipher more of the longer words either because I know them or because many Dutch words are compounds of other words and particles so I can take a reasonable guess. It's the little words that get me. Like 'er', 'hij/ie', 'te'. They all seem to get lost in the speech somewhere. I end up knowing what is being spoken about, but not what's being said about it. (Makes it entertaining trying to guess what's going on in a film when there's no subtitles.)

(although it won't always be correct, and it's usually still pretty choppy and broken up by ums and uhs)

Uh huh. Quite a few ums and uhs, all over the shop.

[Dora]

It seems to be the opposite for me. My listening is much better than my speaking. I guess that says something about which gets more practice. The bottleneck is vocabulary. I often don't know enough words to say something even if I keep the grammar within my limited knowledge. However, I can often figure out what people are saying, even if they use a word or expression that I've never heard before.