Hallo. Mijn Naam is Dayna.

I’m interrupting the cycle of travel and visitor news to bring you the latest instalment of “This Expat Life”…

I’ve always been a list person, especially when it comes to goals. I write them down and there’s nothing more satisfying than crossing it off once accomplished. So naturally when I moved, I had a to-do list:

ü  Move. Make it across the pond with all my suitcases and into my new abode in one piece. Check.

ü  Get to know the neighbourhood. Locate the nearest gym, supermarket, pharmacy, etc. Check.

ü  Make friends. Check.

ü  Start work and get settled at work. Check.

·         Purchase a bike.  (Sometimes you have to be flexible and can’t rush through checking things off your list just for the sake of checking them off. I’ve learned that from some very wise people over the years)

ü  Plan and take some cool trips. Check.

ü  Purchase a bike. Check. (I always said I was going to purchase one. I never committed to riding).

·         Learn Dutch. In progress.

Learn Dutch. About 2/3 of the Dutch people I know say don’t bother. “It’s a hard language.” “You don’t need it” (everyone speaks English in AMS, work is all in English). “Even if you do learn it, Dutch people will speak English back to you.” All fair points, but I’m not one to shy away from a challenge.

There are three ways to learn Dutch in the Netherlands:

1.       You lock yourself in a convent for two weeks and learn from nuns; you walk out fluent. Hmmm. Two weeks vacation to get my wrists slapped by a ruler by some nun OR two weeks of holiday in exotic places, like the beach in Tel Aviv, or a tour of Scandinavia. What would you choose?

2.       You take a class with several other students at a local university, community center, etc. for either 3 or 6 hours/week .

3.       You take a 1:1 course 1/week.

I opted for option 3. After lesson #2, here’s what I can tell you:

·         This sh*t’s hard! Dutch, as my teacher told me, is comprised of German, English and French. Well, I speak English and French, so how hard could this be? It’s hard. And now I’m stuck 1:1 with this guy who has to suffer listening to me as I butcher his language, ask too many questions, and try to avoid speaking Dutch by telling him about my life in Engels (English) for an hour and a half each week. Poor guy.  

·         I can pretty confidently read (basic) Dutch. Guess what this says: Hallo. Mijn naam is Dayna. Ik ben Amerikaanse maar ik spreek Nederands. But try pronouncing it. Go on. Please send me a recording. I will happily critique it.

·         Numbers are not my friends. We went through the numbers yesterday, which is actually quite interesting. For example, in English, 24 is the first number followed by the second: twenty-four. In Dutch, the second number comes first. So, 24 would be vierentwintig, or vier (4) en (and) twintig (20). Interesting, right?

Now, it’s no secret I’m not the child in our family that got the 800 on her math SAT (although I did score very well on the essay portion, thank you very much!). So when the teacher started throwing out math equations as a way to test if I a. understood what number he was saying and then b. was looking for me to verbalize a response by giving the answer to the equation, things didn’t go so well. Now, if the equations were simple, like 1+1 or 2x2, things would’ve been just dandy. But he was throwing out 2 and 3-digit long-division. C’mon buddy. Cut me some slack here.

·         Reading teachers are saints. And I’m not just saying that because my mom is a master reading teacher. These people are blessed with patience I’ll never have. It’s actually quite humbling to learn how to ‘read again.’ Sounding out each word. Looking for confirmation that you said it right. Remembering that the ‘G’ is a chhuhhh sounds from the back of the throat, the ‘e’ at the end of a word is like an ‘a’ in English, the ‘j’ is like a ‘y’ and so on… Again, this poor guy.

·         It completely freaks a Dutch speaker out when they have no idea you all of a sudden ‘speak’ Dutch and you pick up on certain words they say to someone else and repeat them back to them. Because that happened at work today. And it made the pain suffered in items 1-4 completely worth it J

Tot de volgende keer…