How learning Dutch helps me to teach English

Since August 2021, I’ve been learning Dutch again. I say again because I first started in 2001 and have since then stopped and started too many times to remember. But since I began teaching English, I’ve found that I’m much more motivated and patient with myself when I start learning a new language, and more importantly, I can empathise with my students and share experiences on a daily basis.

For example, sometimes students ask why they can learn and understand something one week and then have forgotten it the next. Does this mean they’re just not good at learning languages? Absolutely not! I too understand that frustration of forgetting things and then having to revise them again and again - it’s a normal part of the process. The same goes for making mistakes. Often we make mistakes because we’re transferring our own language vocabulary, grammar or word order. This is to be expected too. Another common experience is that we’ve learnt a rule and so we apply it…to an exception to the rule, or we’re applying a rule to the wrong form or word order. However, the upside is that we’ve learnt a rule, and that’s already an important step.

When students struggle with grammar, I think: I know how that feels – this reminds me of trying to understand the various word order rules of Dutch. Or the fact that the past simple and present perfect are not used the same way in English. And as for ‘separable’ verbs…let’s just not go there!

Sometimes I can even make direct comparisons between learning Dutch and learning English, such as with irregular verbs: There are SO MANY of them in English! But there is also a seemingly endless list of irregular verbs in Dutch too. So, I’m familiar with having to learn verbs in groups of three (infinitive, past simple, past participle) and can tell my students that I honestly understand that while it might be a boring task, it’s worth practising them as much as you can, over a long period of time. One day, the tenses just come naturally, and it’s such a nice feeling when you realise you don’t have to think about it so much anymore.

As for pronunciation, when students struggle, it reminds me of my struggle to pronounce words like “vliegtuig” (aeroplane) or “schreeuwen” (to yell or scream) in Dutch. Unfortunately, learning sounds and intonation that you’ve never used in your own language is difficult.

If you feel that you’d like to improve your accent, it can make a real difference to focus on and practise particular individual sounds (phonemes), words and phrases with an English teacher. A qualified teacher can reliably show you/explain how to make those sounds and will find interesting ways to help you practise them. They may even teach the phonetic alphabet so that you can accurately write down how words sound when you hear them. It is also possible to improve fluency and intonation with practice too. But even with all of this, whilst it’s very satisfying being able to pronounce another language really well, don’t worry about sounding ‘perfect’. Firstly, there are many, many different native-speaker accents. Secondly, it is very difficult to have no foreign accent at all. Thirdly, let’s not forget that your accent is part of who you are, and there’s no shame in that. So if you can be understood, are doing your best and also continuing to learn and improve, these are the most important things.

Quite honestly, If everyone felt embarrassed about not being able to speak perfectly, we’d all just be stuck with our own language, making weird hand signals and shouting slowly at each other. I guess my main message to fellow language students is this: Just do your best, and realise that your best is most definitely good enough. Just keep going and congratulate yourself every now and again for all that you do get right and for all of your hard work!