End of the Month and Plans

I'm not going to learn any new words tomorrow, but use the last day of the month to review the words I've already learnt. I do keep forgetting words and muddling them up so I think it's time to take stock again.

I'm pleased with my progress this month, hitting the 500 word mark for the month. I think I will restrict myself to about 200 for October as I have to maintain those 500 words, and I also have 3 computing courses that I'm doing until the middle of December so I'm going to be quite busy.

By the end of the year, I hope to have completed the 1000 most common words list. I'm going to have to think about how I want to continue in the New Year. Will it be focusing on grammar and sentence construction, or learning more words? I might set up my own word lists on memrise to test tenses and irregular verbs.

29th September 2011 Today's Words

Dutch	English	Comments
tomaat	tomato
de lucht	the air, heaven (as in sky), fragrance	For the religious version of heaven, it's de hemel. (Hemel can be used for the heavens as well.)
de rups	caterpillar	As butterfly showed up last time, and not caterpillar, here's chrysalis to complete the sequence: de pop
fiets	bicycle	Earlier, there was fietspad.
de diamantslijper	the diamond cutter
produkt	product	Product includes the answer to a multiplication.
wiel	wheel
het is goed	it's alright
ik ga	I go
de gieter	the watering can
ik breng	I bring
carburateur	carburettor
de eigenaar	the owner	Eigen is own.
rijp	ripe

28th September 2011 Today's Words 2

A second set of words for today.

Dutch	English	Comments
de ventilator	the fan
toilet	toilet
anders	other
bloedverwant	relative	Verwant means related to, and bloed is blood.
de vlinder	the butterfly
geschikt	suitable
droog	dry
ik hoor	I hear
vrolijk	happy
binnen	inside
eerlijk	sincere	Eer means honour
hark	rake
ei	egg
olie	oil

Vocabulary - Some and Every

I'm getting quite confused with the some- and every- words so I'm going to summarise them here. I thought I might as well include the no- words as well.

Dutch	English	Dutch	English	Dutch	English
sommig(e), wat	some	ieder(e)	every	geen	none
iemand	someone	iedereen	everyone	niemand	no one
iets	something	alles	everything	niets	nothing
ergens	somewhere	overal	everywhere	nergens	nowhere
soms	sometimes	altijd	always	nooit	never

Note that the no- words, apart from none and never, are just the some- words with an n in front.

Some more words to add to this collection are

alleen - only, alone
al - all
anders - other

Some

The English word some is used to express different meanings such as certain, a few or any. There are several words in Dutch which can be used for some. They are sommige, wat, een paar, enkele and enige. I'm just going to look at sommige, wat  and een paar for the moment.

Sommige is used when some is meant in the sense of certain. (Sommig in front of het words, sommige in front of de words and plurals.)

• Sommige winkels verkoopt brood. - Some (certain) shops sell bread.
• De winkel verkoopt cakes. Sommige smaken lekker! - The shop sells cakes. Some (of them) taste delicious!
• Hij leest sommige boeken. - He reads some (certain) books.
• Sommige dingen veranderen nooit. - Some things never change.
• Voor sommig werk moet je handig zijn. - For certain jobs, you must be handy.

(Reference: http://www.dutchgrammar.com/en/?n=Pronouns.Id09)

Wat and een paar are used when some means a few. Wat can always be used, whereas een paar can only be used before plural nouns. Note that wat also means what, and een paar literally means a pair.
(http://www.dutchgrammar.com/en/?n=Pronouns.Id12)

• Hij leest wat boeken. - He reads some books.
• Hij leest en paar boeken. - He reads some (a few) books.

• Hij at wat rijst. - He ate some rice. (Present tense: eet. Past: at) Een paar can not be used here.

28th September 2011 Today's Words

Dutch	English	Comments
ieder	every
de rivier	the river, stream
meer	lake	This also means more.
de plant	the plant
bord	plate	Bord occurred earlier in nummerbord which is numberplate.
bij	near	Bij also means bee.
achter	behind
de chaffeur	the driver
uitgezonderd	except
veel	much
kussen	to kiss	Kussen also means pillow.
paard	horse	Yesterday, I mentioned paard when paired with tuig giving paardetuig which means a horse's harness.
rechts	right (directions)	Recht means straight, as in straight line, but to give directions to say straight on, it's rechtdoor.
roze	pink

27th September 2011 Today's Words

I've caught up to where I was with the other account, with just one more error. I wrote slek instead of slak for snail.

The words I've learnt today are these.

Dutch	English	Comments
vliegtuig	aeroplane	Tuig on its own means harness, or mob, although that can't be the meaning here. A flying mob? Scary! It's also used in vaartuig, where vaar is from varen which is to move on water. A harness for a horse is paardetuig, where paard is horse.
de worm	the worm, kid, tot
lekker	delicious
baan	job	Ik heb een baan. I have a job. This is paid work rather than just a job that needs to be done around the house. Ik ga naar werk. I go to work.
de pijn	the pain, sorrow
baas	boss
het tandvlees	the gum	Tand is tooth, vlees is meat so this is literally the tooth meat. As with pork, which is literally pig meat (varkensvlees), the is het since it is het vlees and the article must agree with the last part of the noun.
fout	fault	De fout also means the mistake.
dekbed	duvet	The word for blanket is deken. Although, the spelling is similar, in dekbed it's a short e and in deken a long. The verb to cover is dekken.
vrij	free	Vrij occurred earlier where it was translated as vacant.
suiker	sugar
de boot	the boat, ship, craft
de broer	the friar, brother	The plural, broers is in the Longman wordlist.
gids	guide	It means both a person who is a guide, and a TV guide. It can be used for a guidebook. Although it can be used for a manual, handleiding is more common.
iemand	someone
tezamen	together	The wordlist says te zamen but it's actually one word. It's not a particularly common word.

Writing this page has certainly helped me remember them, as has talking them over with a friend. I made one mistake when I went through the harvest stage which was to spell suiker with a z instead of an s.

26th - 27th September 2011 Today's Mistakes

I've now harvested 323 words in Dutch: The thousand most common words in Dutch. These are the mistakes I made excluding typos where I hadn't typed what I thought I had.

English	Correct Dutch	What I put	Comments
crowd	menigte	mensigte
the pork	het varkensvlees	de varkensvlees	literally: pig meat
pleasure	plezierig	pleziering
to leave	verlaten	verloren	verloren is lost
the mistake	de fout	het fout
human being	menselijk wezen	mensilijk wezen
suddenly	plotseling	spoedig	spoedig is soon
adult	volwassene	volwessene

I'm pretty sure I'm muddling up menigte, volwassene and menselijk wezen.

I've got 61 words to harvest to catch up with where I was on the other account. They aren't ready for harvesting yet so tomorrow it will be.