1.1 to 1.5

Hallo. Mijn naam is [name]. Welkom bij de cursus Introduction to Dutch. - Hello. My name is [name]. Welcome to the course Introduction to Dutch.

Veel succes. - Good luck.

The cognates between English and Dutch are quite clear. The word 'bij' is used rather than what Dutch's cognate for 'to' would be.'Bij' reminds me of German's 'bei'.

'Veel' is cognate to German's 'viel', while English's cognates are now obsolete or merely dialectal. Words like 'fele', or 'feel' and not the one usually known.

Stay or Go?

Tomorrow will be Week 3, and I have only done 6 steps in the entire course. I don't think I want to do this on some level. Should I stay in the course, and cram the rest of the course in one week, or leave?

Do I really want to learn Dutch? It wouldn't hurt to know more Germanic languages, and as many as I can. I mean if I had to learn only a couple of Germanic languages, it would be German, Icelandic, and Danish/Norwegian. And perhaps Frisian. German is very important within Germanic languages, Icelandic and Danish/Norwegian to fill up the Northern Germanic languages. And Frisian is important since it is the closest relative to the English language.

So what's Dutch's importance to me?

Langfocus on the Dutch Language

In less than a week the course on FutureLearn will start. The guy behind Langfocus uploaded this video.



His videos are enjoyable and fun to watch.

I hope to master many languages, including Germanic languages.

One fact from this video is that Dutch is the midway between English and German, and with Frisian being between Dutch and English. The languages mentioned are all West Germanic languages.

Introduction

I have signed up for a course on Dutch language on FutureLearn. I've been told that if one is going to take a course on Frisian one should also take one on Dutch as well. No harm in taking that advice.

This blog will serve as notes and as documentation of progress through the course.