Week 4!!

Weeeeek 4!!

Featuring Mahmood.

Inuyasha

*We sing-along to one of his songs and a Mulan song in Dutch below as a fun final mini-challege.

This final week Neha and I made incredible breakthroughs. Though we had some good vocabulary lists, contextualizing them with grammar was proving very difficult through the week, as we were trying to use the vocabulary without having a good enough grasp of general grammar. Though we had looked into grammar, especially present tense for Italian and taken note of it we were having trouble internalizing it. At the same time, we had struggled to find a comprehensive put-together report of Dutch grammar online.

This week we met and got together in person as well. We began physically writing down conjugations and began to internalize so much better due to this. At the same time, as opposed to websites, YouTube videos were an amazing source and taught us the general information we had been looking for in a concise manner. Due to these videos we were able to take note of the equivalents of imperfect and passe compose (French) in Dutch and Italian, as well as learn some things about the future tense in Italian. Meanwhile we learned about how to declinate our describers in Italian based on gender/plurality.

This meant that we were able to begin piecing together vocabulary finally in a way that created the more complex phrases we had been hoping to make. We made progress on Italian and still want to work on Dutch as it has been more difficult for us.

Week 3: Learning & Goal Setting

 

End of week zoom in order to plan our week forward for the 4th week.

Neha was having her WiFi fixed for the week, so we were not able to meet and practice speaking in the way we had planned to the earlier week. Therefore, separately it was up to us to work on the new vocabulary we had accumulated in the past week.

So, I reviewed our big list of vocabulary and some of the sentence structure we have been putting together, finding that some of the vocabulary was easier to learn as it was so similar to words I knew in other languages. At the end of the week, Neha and I then met in order to have good set goals for next week, as it is our last week. We decided we would want to become highly proficient in the areas of vocab. study we have already outlined, but also learn many more verbs than we do as of now, in order to practice grammar.

We are not sure how much we will be able to meet the last week as we both have AP's, but I will attempt to send her a song in Italian and Dutch that we can each learn. At the same time I hope we can record some conversation of what we have learned and improved upon since week 1.

I am excited to continue and to settle any points of confusion we have along the way. Hopefully we can research some of the culture as well and have some final project that integrates it.

Week 2: Grammar & Some More Vocabulary Fun

I think the above accurately describes the *vibes* of this week in which Neha and I attempt to learn the two very different grammar structures of Italian and Dutch at once, not really understanding why grammar across languages has to be so different yet so similar at the same time.

It makes me admittedly appreciate English sitting there all the time like: 💅 even more.  Also, I love the depiction of German in the photo. It's just so representative of the unnecessary struggle.

This week Neha and I could only zoom virtually once, as she was having WiFi issues, therefore we were able to practice verbal communication less and were not able to film anything fun for the end of this week. However, we did get to work asynchronously.

Our goals this week were to learn vocabulary surrounding family, food, & likes and dislikes. We were able to begin doing so, but found that we also needed to get much more vigorous learning grammar in order to start piecing the vocabulary together and have better conversation.

So along with practicing vocabulary, we started to begin research on grammar. We have been having to spend time especially on Dutch, as information on grammar is a little more complex to understand. It lacks clarity because the grammar fits less inside of "pretty tables" in the way that Italian does.

We still have a lot of work to do to completely understand the use of certain language in Dutch such as the "present perfect". I know that a similar tense exists in German, but it is difficult for me to translate any understanding to Dutch. Since my use is automatic, I honestly don't have the underlying grammatic principles, but I hope to soon.

In the next week Neha and I hope to get a better understanding of grammar, continued use of vocabulary and want to implement it in lengthier conversation. We hope to learn to sing some Italian & Dutch music for ourselves and maybe for you guys, as well as start to learn food vocabulary so that we can eventually have *oooh* a cooking show (if Neha's Wifi can agree to cooperate 🙏).

Week 1: Introductions!!

💫    

Hi! My name is Chloé. :)

My friend Neha and I are learning some Dutch and Italian for our Senior Project.

Us zooming in on the day we filmed some conversation (linked below)

    When speaking with Neha one day, I told her I was interested in learning Italian and Dutch for my senior project. I was very surprised when she readily told me that it was a really fun idea and she would love to come onboard. I have always loved learning languages and always wanted to learn another romance language along with my French and Spanish, so that was my reason for wanting to take Italian, while I thought it would also be cool to learn another Germanic language other than my German. Learning Italian and Dutch at once would give me and Neha contrasting sounds and grammar to tackle, challenging ourselves much more than just learning one language would, so off we went. ;)

    This week Neha and I have begun to acquaint ourselves with the Italian and Dutch languages. We began learning the language for introductions and have gone back and forth practicing that communication. Meanwhile, we have started to understand the sounds made in the language based on spelling, such as the fact that the "g" in makes a "kh" sound in Dutch, the "gl" make a "y" sound in Italian etc. The Dutch language gives us a good laugh every time because we find ourselves butchering the foreign sounds and cracking up because the language happens to have many expressions that sound like phrases in English.

    Now we have begun to learn days of the week, family vocabulary, weather, and how to express our likes dislikes. This will be our next step in the languages. Meanwhile, while learning this vocabulary we are going to try to pick up on grammar patterns and how we can use this vocabulary in context. To do this, we have already begun to set up tables for irregular and regular verbs. We also often write down example sentences on how to use certain vocabulary such as "I like" in a sentence based on different situations.

     The next goals Neha and I have set are to continue to practice introductory conversation and add on to what we already know. Along with this, we would like to learn the vocabulary I highlighted above and how to use it in context. After learning this vocabulary, next week we will also have other goals such as learning food vocabulary, color, and clothing. Grammar is also important to our ability to improve, so we will try to focus on verbs in present tense. We know that the more we learn, the more we'll be able to integrate fun/more varying activities into our learning such as music, cooking etc., so we are especially inspired to do so.

Here are the links to our conversations in Dutch in Italian, with subtitles included. This was filmed mid-week, after a few hours of learning so we apologize for any mistakes and offense to the Dutch or Italian communities in advance 😆. Also we often mixed up formal and informal:

Recorded Italian Convo #1

Recorded Dutch Convo #1