talking the talk

I'll admit it.

I have been pretty lazy about speaking Dutch since the end of my taalcursus back in August.

The first week after I had moved into my Amsterdam apartment I started an intensive, three week-long 'pre-intermediate' level Dutch class. I was in class for four hours a day, four days a week, and studied for about three hours at home each night. I had a decent enough grounding in the (written) Dutch language when I arrived here thanks to about a years' worth of evening classes I had taken at the University of Toronto. I could figure out how to get around, buy my groceries, stammer out a few sentences, and knew when people were swearing. With my clumsy beginnings, I felt that just two things were really holding me back from true fluency, from really talking the talk:

1. my 'ear'. When I arrived I had a really hard time with hearing what people said. Not surprisingly, most Dutch people speak a hell of a lot faster than my lovely teacher back in Canada. Pile on this all the different accents and slang that doesn't appear in either dictionary or textbook, and I felt like I was just hearing a lot of gutteral noises for the first week or so.
   
2. my own lack of confidence in my abilities. I never feel like I know enough vocabulary, or I worry about my pronunciation or word order. I hate making mistakes. (In other words, all the normal joys and tribulations of learning a new language were getting me down.)
   

Well, my vocabulary grew significantly during my course and since then has continued to expand. I read at least a bit of Dutch everyday (even if it's just subtitles on the tv or a recipe). I have a few Dutch television shows I watch regularly. I can understand people pretty well now, although I often still have to ask them to speak more slowly. The only thing continuing to hold me back from true language proficiency is my clinging lack of confidence in speaking.

My lack of confidence, and well, laziness. The fact that is that everyone here not only speaks English to me, but usually prefers to do so. For the sake of conversation and bowing to my timidness, I usually let them. One of our constant complaints during our course was that even when we tried to practice our Dutch in everyday situations (ordering a koffie, doing the boodschappen, talking with the buren about the weather), the Dutch people we attempted to converse with would often notice that we were not native speakers and would almost automatically start speaking to us in English. I think that this is especially the case in Amsterdam. In terms of doing my research, the ability to converse about serious subjects in English (i.e. during an interview) was one of the reasons I decided on Amsterdam over another city, or a smaller village (where English is less common). But in terms of learning the language, it really makes it a bit trickier, especially because one has to work that much harder to get the practice in, or not lapse into laziness.

During my course I thought about what it must be like for people living here and trying to learn Dutch for their civic integration requirements (inburgering). With English as a commonly spoken language between Dutch people and foreigners, what must it be like for those living here who don't speak English? This was brought home to me again yesterday (actually, really today when recounting the episode from yesterday to my friend Mike and he said something brilliant, and thus, here I am blogging about language - happy, Mike?). Yesterday, I was walking up my street on the way back from the Central Station when a man asked me for directions - in Dutch. He first asked me if I spoke Dutch. I replied with "Ja, een kleine beetje." (Yes, a little bit.) And he proceeded to ask me if his directions to the Dam Square were correct. I thought I understood most of what he had said, but to be sure I had to ask him to speak a little slower. Now, usually this is the point where the conversation switches to English. This time, however, he asked me if I spoke Spanish. Since I don't speak Spanish and he didn't speak English, the only common language between me and my new Columbian friend was Dutch (which he spoke beautifully)! So, he spoke slower for me, I understood exactly what he was saying, he humoured my slow and clunky sentence construction and grasping for words to try to describe my research, and we had a nice little conversation about what we were both doing here. It actually felt great to finally be required to really rely on my Dutch skills. It also showed me that I do have a good level of comprehension, and that it really is my timidness holding me back.

The point of this long and winding tale is that it has gotten me thinking about the importance of the Dutch language, the seeming omnipresence of English, and what I am doing here. It has gotten the little language-cogs in my brain churning again, even if it hasn't untied my tongue... yet. Most of the people I have come into contact with so far have been well-educated, often university students, graduates, researchers. The fact is that the only person who I have had to speak Dutch with in months was another foreigner! Tomorrow, I am attending training so that I can begin volunteering to help 'at risk' youth learn to speak English. The people I need to get in touch with research-wise will hopefully come from all different classes, and so, like the kids I'm going to be teaching, wont have quite the same high-level of fluency in English.

So, it looks like it's back to class for me, in more ways than one. I plan to get in touch with Gilde Amsterdam, an organization that, among other things, arranges speaking partners for people who want to improve their Dutch (the SamenSpraak programme). I have learned a lot about Dutch culture and people since I've been here, but still need to work on talking the talk. Literally.