Dutch/News

The Wikibook Dutch has been around for a number of years (January 2004), but has been updated considerably from mid May to Mid July 2015. This log is mainly intended for returning users who want to benefit from the improvements.

June 2016

 * Some of the links to youtube had died, but I revived them. I expanded lesson 8 a bit and added a exercise in splitting pronominal adverbs to 8A.

July 14, 2015

 * I am declaring this book finished. I have decided not to add parallel lessons to the advanced level, because they are mostly special topics and are not really suitable for such things. In the Intermediary Level all the practice and example lesson have been added, but I have not done a term count / generated quizlets beyond lesson 10. At that point students should be able to call their own shots more and more. I think as it now stands the course is credible and comprehensive one. If users disagree I would gladly hear from them. I might still add some more vocabulary materials if I run into suitable topics, but that is added material anyway.

July 4, 2015
Added a new visual vocabulary page Dutch/Vocabulary/Human body.

July 1, 2015
I added a vocabulary box and a quizlet link to Example 9 and added a new topic about Souterliedekens to Example 16. There is only 2 more lessons to add to the Intermediate level (15A and 16A). I am considering removing the practice and example lessons for the advanced level, because those are mostly special topics and I doubt that parallel lesson are very helpful in that phase. People should be able to find their own materials at that point. That means that there is some more work to do in the Intermediary level, but then it will pretty much be done. Yay.

June 19, 2015
I finished Quiz 1 for the first cycle and made a start with Quiz 2 that ends the Beginner Level. I have also inserted small quizzes in 1A, 2A, 3A and 4A. It is not a very elegant tool, but it has its uses.

June 18, 2015

 * Thanks to Waugsberg I am now familiarizing myself with the potential of the feature of the wiki software. I would like to end each cycle with a quiz and have started writing one for the first cycle Dutch/Quiz/Cycle1. It is pretty rough as I am still learning. Made some changes to the navigation template to include the quiz. Did the word count / quizlet up to lesson 8A and reached 1000 terms there.

June 17, 2015

 * Added vocab-box for the salesman story of 7A and created a Quizlet set. Did the term count and uploaded a few missing terms. Made the yellow Textbox 50% width. This seems to avoid clashes with the vocab-box. Added a parameter to the vocab-box in case there multiple ones. Imported Dutch/Vocabulary/Eating ware from fr.wikibooks.

June 16, 2015

 * Added a word order exercise to 11A.

June 14, 2015

 * Worked on Lesson 12A; imported Dutch/Vocabulary/Talking hobbies from fr.wikibooks after uploading all the sound files. Integrated it into 12A. Earlier on added Dutch/Example 13; it is not finished yet, the idea is to do something with the Dutch spoken in the former Dutch East Indies and do Multatuli is a later example.

June 9, 2015

 * Made sound files for and imported Dutch/Vocabulary/Eating and made Dutch/Vocabulary/Politeness its own vocab page. These are pages with phrases rather than single words. Went through lesson 6, created a quizlet set and added a cumulative count. Also added Dutch/Example 12 with the famous war poem by Jan Campert.

June 8, 2015

 * Created lesson 23 about triply separable words like eruitzien or erbovenop. I also divided the course in three levels: beginner, intermediate and advanced. Each level consists of two cycles of four lessons (except the very last that only has three. I reorganized the bulky table on the main page accordingly. I also changed the navigation template to show what level and cycle you are in and expressed that in color coding. I have finished the cumulative word count for cycle 4. I did 5 and 5A; included the Dutch/Vocabulary/Drinks page into 5A and generated two more sound files. I am thinking of recap units at each cycle end, but that is still a mere thought.

June 7, 2015

 * More quizlet sets have been added and a vocabulary count has been added through example 2. A vocabulary of time nouns and adverbs has been imported from fr.wikibooks. The Phrase book has been supplemented from fr.wikibooks as well. Dutch/Example 11 has been created with the song of the Lutine, but I haven't sung it yet. Lesson 12A has been expanded with the intervocalic -d- story. Lesson 5A has a story about driver's ed. All text has been put in colored boxes and the instructions what to do with such material has been made clearer in lesson 1

June 1, 2015

 * I am starting to think that each lesson should have a Quizlet set to send people to. I wish I did not have to send them to an outside site for that, but the wikisoftware simply does not allow for the type of interactivity that Quizlet and Memrise do. I created a Quizlet practice set for lesson 6A. An attempt to do the same for Memrise failed because I cannot do Dutch-Dutch there and I wanted to associate infinitives with past tenses. Created Q-sets for the vocabulary of lessons 1, 1A, Ex. 1, the survival kit, the personal pronouns of lesson 1.

May 31, 2015
I have started to familiarize myself a bit with Quizlet and its cue card technology. I made the 56 words of the survival kit into a Quizlet set, but I also made some suggestions on meta and on mediawiki that we ought to have this sort of functionality ourselves here if we want to make language books attractive propositions. I added a dialogue to 3A and collected the narratives of 6A/7A with all the past tenses into a single story. Make audio for everything. Did some tweaking here and there. Added audio /vocab box to Gesprek 2-3. Made a new template for vocab-boxes. Should have done that before of course.

May 30, 2015
Updated the navigation template to include other pages than just the lessons. Redid lesson 7. Recorded, uploaded and inserted sound files for all conversations in main lessons. I think.

May 28, 2015
Recorded a number of sound files for the first few lessons. Dialogues, phrases and a few loose words. Added some more stuff about saying please, thank you, excuse mer atc. Wrote new Example 15 with poetry of Vondel, Tollens and Van Duyse, including sound files and translations.

May 27, 2015
I managed to reactivate my H4n recorder and hook it up to my newer laptop and can make some decent recordings for the dialogues and the poems now. Did Gorter and the theater play in Vb3, the dialogue in 5 (added some "please" and "thank you"). Found some more youtube videos with vocabulary for the lessons 1 and 2. Put is a topic on the verb willen. Started a new vocabulary page on clothing.

May 25, 2015
Moves the Example 10 about the Waternoodramp to #14 because it was too heavy, wrote a new one for 10 with poems of de Génestet and a children's video about birds and bird species. Added a topic about indefinite pronouns to 15 including sound files.

May 23, 2015
Added fill-in-the-blanks to 3A. Added practice lesson 8A, but it needs more stuff. Added Examples 9 and 10. Vb. 9 is a famous poem by Gezelle, giving an example of the southern Flemish variant of Dutch, including pronunciation in a link to the song version. Vb. 10 is about the long litany or flood disasters, in particular the one in '53. Includes a video link and a song. Tweaked the main page more, added more sound links. I redid the School and Family pages. Neither is ideal, but they have improved a lot.

May 20, 2015

 * Reorganized the main page. Added Example 8 about minorities. Made some icons for telling time. Added flip person exercise to 5A and 6A to revisit personal pronouns. Made the index into a sortable table.

May 19, 2015

 * Made a beginning with an index page. Not quite sure how best to organize it. Did discover I had missed some topics. Added relative, reciprocal and reflexive pronouns and more modal verbs and a topic on copulas. I hope I finally have all the grammar except maybe indefinite pronouns. Also archived all old massages on the talk pages and put a message there referring all discussion to Talk:Dutch.

May 18, 2015

 * Added a 18A page with some exercises. Thoroughly reworked both 6A and 7A to include the perfect tense as well. Put a vocabulary box on 14. Collected the vocabulary of 2 in excel and added some exercise material to 2A to repeat words from 2, 1, 1A and Vb 1. Added a sentence from Vb.5 to 22 and created a link back.

May 17, 2015

 * Split the Lesson 6A story in half and put strong classes 4-7 on a new page 7a. (It was too much anyway). Added "twee haasjes" to example 6 Wrote more exercises for Lesson 2A using vocabulary of 1, 1A and 2 on adjective inflection and question syntax. Wrote a final exercise for 1A comprising all vocabulary of 1 and 1A. Wrote an article of Useful tricks for language book editors. Started revamping the family vocabulary page, but it's a mess.

May 16, 2015

 * Used the svg icons for the prepositions to create a new vocabulary page Dutch/Vocabulary/Prepositions. Added more icons. Revamped much of the Dutch/Alfabet page. Added IPA notation and a lot of pronunciation examples. Added some fill in the blank exercises to the first few lessons.

May 15, 2015

 * Made more icons in inkscape for lesson 17, added more sound links particularly to lesson 7 and wrote a new lesson, #22 about the use of participles.

May 14, 2015

 * Mostly updated Lesson 17. Added a sortable table to show the interrelations between prepositions, their adverbs, pronominal adverbs and compound verbs. Started making some .svg icons to render the meaning graphically in the most excellent program Inkscape that is always full of wonderful surprises and obstacles. (end sarcasm).

May 13, 2015

 * All pages have a header now.
 * Added a conversation and an item about interrogative pronouns to les 11.
 * Added sound files to Les 18.
 * Added hovers and vocabulary to discourse of les 15
 * Added hovers and vocabulary to discourse of les 12

May 12, 2015

 * A new navigation template was created to give all the lesson, practice and example pages the same header and provide easy navigation between them all. Lesson 1 was tweaked a little and more audio material was added to the first few lessons.

May 11, 2015

 * A host of sound files, mostly of individual words, has become available via our sister project: WikiWoordenboek and a major effort is underway to add audio buttons to all the pages of the book.
 * More illustrations are being added, that include an audio button
 * Collapsible vocabulary blocks -including sound links- are being added, mostly to the conversations and texts, to make it possible to make better use of the material
 * Rewrote lesson 7.
 * A number of vocabulary pages now have both images and sound links, e.g. Landscape, Sport, Fruit, Sport
 * The table of contents on the main page has been cleaned up and a second column added for practice pages to be added to each of the gramar lessens. The idea is to have two practice pages per lesson, one (Les 1A, 2A etc) that further trains the grammar taught in the main lessons, the other (Voorbeeld 1, 2, 3 etc.) that uses material from songs, nursery rhymes, poetry etc. to teach language in a more playful context. The first two of those have been fully revamped / created and makes use of video material available on YouTube.