Week 1: Introductions!!

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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