Vocabulary - Leave

In the word lists, there are two words given for 'leave'. The first is verlaten which means to leave. It  can mean leave in the physical sense of leaving one place for another, or in the sense of abandoning someone or something. It requires leaving something or someone.

The second word, vertrekken, can be used when you are leaving to go somewhere else, but when you are not mentioning where you are leaving.This can not be used in the sense of abandoning someone or something, although it can be used for the break up of a relationship, but perhaps not so commonly. It's more towards depart than just leave, and is also used for take off.

Verlaten is something you do to a place (or person). Vertrekken is something you do.

Examples

• De vrouw verlaat de kamer. - The woman leaves the bedroom.
• De man vertrekt naar Frankrijk. - The man leaves for France.  (literally: to France)

• De vrouw verlaat haar man. - The woman leaves her husband.
• Hij is bij haar vertrokken. - He left (departed from) her.
• Hij heeft haar verlaten. - He left (abandoned) her.
• Hij is bij haar weg. - He left her. (He is from her away.) This is possibly a more common way to express the breakup.

• De man is net vertrokken. - The man has just left - we don't know where from so it's vertrekken.
• De man heeft net het gebouw verlaten. - The man just left the building. - We know where he left so it's verlaten.
• De man is net uit het gebouw vertrokken. -  The man just left the building. - but we can use vertrekken if we say he left 'out of' the building.

• De man vertrekt uit de gebouw. - The man leaves (out of) the building.
• De man verlaat de gebouw. - The man leaves the building.

Suffixes

As I come across comparisons between Dutch, Swedish and English suffixes, I'll post them here.

Example	Meaning	Dutch	Swedish	English
waarheid	truth (lit: trueness)	-heid	-het	-ness

Mistakes in Memrise Word Lists

This is a list of mistakes I've found in the word lists in memrise. I don't know whether the corrections apply globally or just for me.

List	English	Error	Correction	Literal Translation, notes
Dutch Unit 1-3 Pearson Longman Text Book	Really?	Ech waar?	Echt waar?	Really/genuinely true  (Corrected 2011-10-04)
Dutch The thousand most common words in Dutch	the animal	de dier	het dier	(Corrected 2011-10-04)
Dutch The thousand most common words in Dutch	Do you speak English?	Spreekt u/jij Engels?	Spreekt u Engels / Spreek jij Engels?
Dutch The thousand most common words in Dutch	Will you help me?	Wilt u/jij me helpen?	Wilt u me helpen / Wil jij me helpen?
Dutch The thousand most common words in Dutch	The bushes, should be the bush		de struik	The Dutch word given is singular. The plural is struiken. (28/9/11) (Corrected 2011-10-04)
Dutch The thousand most common words in Dutch	Radio	el radio	radio	The Dutch article is 'de'. For some reason it's in Spanish. I added another word with the correct article, but couldn't delete the old one.
Dutch The thousand most common words in Dutch	The (light) bulb, glove  <-- it doesn't mean glove!		de gloeilamp	I think it was meant to say globe maybe?
Dutch The thousand most common words in Dutch	the bag	the cup	de tas	This is translated as the cup which is only the case in Belgian Dutch. In NL Dutch it's  the bag.
Dutch The thousand most common words in Dutch	the bag	the rucksack	de rugzak	The translation should be rucksack or backpack, not a generic bag.

Starting Again with Memrise

Because I logged in to Memrise with my facebook login, I've decided to start again with an independent account so today I've been going through the words I've previously learnt again. I think this is useful revision.

I'm still making silly mistakes such as giving the wrong answer to German and Germany even though I do actually know that the language is Duits and the country Duitsland.

Free Online Resources

All these resources are free, although some sites do have pay options too.

http://www.specialdutch.com/ songs, stories etc
http://www.2bdutch.nl/

Grammar

http://www.dutchgrammar.com/Registration required for exercises
http://www.dutch.ac.uk/beginners.dutch.grPublish Postammar/index.php
http://www.lauraspeaksdutch.info/
http://www.learndutch.org/
http://dutchlanguage.rietvink.com/
http://www.languagetrav.com/dutch/index.shtml
http://www.learndutch.nu/
http://www.dutchtoday.com/

Vocabulary

http://www.memrise.com/ Registration required
http://www.jekanmewat.nl/
http://www.livemocha.com/
http://www.forbeginners.info/dutch/ vocabulary lists
http://www.qedoc.org/en/index.php?title=Dutch_Vocabulary_Trainer - download (Dutch was on page 16 for me with 100 per page) or launch from the site (requires java)
http://www.qedoc.org/en/index.php?title=Planeten_Quiz
http://users.skynet.be/bd/voc/ndls/
http://mediatheek.thinkquest.nl/~kl044/tmain.htm with sound
http://www.digitaldialects.com/Dutch.htm
http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/other/dutch/guide/ with sound
http://www.livemocha.com/
http://www.transparent.com/language-resources/free-software.html?l=dutch
http://www.pronunciator.com/English/Dutch/index.html with sound

Other Useful Resources

http://www.acapela-group.com/text-to-speech-interactive-demo.html

Update:

http://www.pronunciator.com/ includes voice recognition
http://www.heardutchhere.net/LearningDutch.html
http://www.lingq.com/
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ - good for looking up parts of verbs etc
http://www.specialdutch.com/ stories and songs in Dutch
http://www.dutchpod101.com/ some free, but some pay only

Progress Report 24th September 2011

Today, I've been collecting resources for learning Dutch. I've tried a few times to learn before but it's sort of fizzled out. I love grammar, but find vocabulary very hard to learn.

At the beginning of September, someone on Google+ linked to http://www.memrise.com/. This is a vocab testing program which reminds you to revise the words you've learnt earlier. I decided I wanted to learn 300 words in September.

My progress so far is

Dutch: Dutch Unit 1-3 - Pearson Longman Text Book 61/61 words learnt.

Dutch: Dutch - The thousand most common words in Dutch 384/996 words learnt.


I do keep having to go back and check old words, especially at the moment because I have a cold and I always find I can't focus when I have a cold. I'm not too worried about this because if I can remember anything when ill, I must really know it!