Wednesday, January 21, 2009

This morning we had our first Dutch 1 class. The class is taught a little differently than language classes in the United States. The style is known as the Delft method since it was created in the university in Delft. Rather than learning a list of vocabulary words, we learn sentences. The idea behind it is children learn to speak a language by listening and imitating their parents. So we have a textbook and audio CD’s to listen to. Our teacher joked that these CD’s will be our parents for the next two weeks. Each lesson in our book has a short conversation. There are questions and answers written out like a short story. The first lesson in the book is titled “Hoe heet jij?” which loosely translated means “What is your name?” So today I have been learning how to ask and answer questions about y name, where I am from, and where I am living now. While the lesson don’t look to difficult, it takes a lot of studying to be able to read, translate, understand, pronounce, and use these sentences. Our class started at 10:00 this morning and went until 2:00. The rest of our class periods will only be three hours rather than four since we are such a small group. We did take about a 30 minute break for lunch. I went to a bakery just a little ways from the Central College building. They had premade BLT sandwiches. So I told the man I wanted one of those. He asked me if I wanted a regular, tuna, or chicken one. I was a little taken aback because to me a BLT sandwich contains bacon, lettuce, and tomato. Even though, I decided to order the one with chicken. It was really good. The bread was excellent, I can’t even describe it. Much better than what we buy in the grocery stores. I was lucky enough to enjoy three slices of this freshly baked bread on my sandwich.

After Dutch class, we decided to go to the market. The market in Leiden is open on Wednesdays and Saturdays. We quickly discovered that there much fewer vendors on Wednesdays, but there were still many options to choose from. Today, I was much braver. We first stopped at a vendor that sold olives. The boy behind the counter did not speak much English but we finally able to communicate. I really didn’t know what to choose, but he gave me a sample of one type. It had green and black olives in some sort of oil with onion and herbs. I liked them, so I decided to get those. Maybe next week I will be more adventurous and try some almond or cheese stuffed olives. The olives I purchased were not too much different than those you buy in the stores at home, but tasted a little bit better. The olive stand also sold nuts and dried fruit. I decided to get some of the combination “trail mix.” It had walnuts, almonds, cashews, golden raisins, and other dried fruit and nuts that I really don’t know the names of. But it is all very good. Kyler wanted to buy some cheese so we stopped a cheese vendor. I wasn’t going to buy any but the man gave me a sample and I really liked it. So I bought some cheese. At another stand, I purchased a package of cherries for 1 Euro. I was a little hesitant but they are really good. I also bought some apples, which are also good, and some pears, which I haven’t tried yet.

My evening was spent mostly studying for my Dutch class. I had to take quite a few breaks, but I think I am catching on. We will see tomorrow when I go to class. The next couple of weeks will not be too exciting since I will be spending a good majority of my time trying to learn this language. At first learning Dutch was a good way to fulfill some of my language requirements. Now after being here, I would really like to know some of the things people are saying and read the words that surround me. Most people do speak English which is helpful, but it will be nice to have some basic knowledge of the Dutch language.