On Wednesday I started a photography course focusing on vacation photography. I was midway through the class before I realized that in anticipation of the course I had spent more time thinking about the fact that it would be in Dutch than about who else would be in the class, what I should take with me, or, most importantly, what form the classes would take. Instead I worried over the idea of having to speak Dutch in front of strangers. But in the end it all went ok. And if I removed the foreign language element from the class, I really enjoyed it.
I didn’t set out to take classes specifically on vacation photography. It’s just that the basic photography classes had already started and were more expensive anyway. Plus I figure that what we learn in this course could be applied to photography in general. And I certainly wouldn’t mind improving my holiday photos. The class turned out to be small, only 7 of us, only one of which is a guy (a rather poncy-looking Leiden student type, but relatively ok as those types go). None of us are very experienced with photography and our interests and experiences vary. One girl admitted that she isn't really that into photography, but she is trying new things, so she signed up for the class. The SLR she brought with her was borrowed from a neighbor. Still, she seemed enthusiastic.
Learning depends so much on the teacher and fortunately we have a good one. At least I quite like him so far. He seems to have a broad interest in different types of photography and quite a lot of experience in it. He has an enthusiastic presentation style and a good sense of humor, so I think we all felt pretty comfortable with each other by the end of the first class. Which was spent going over the very basics of photography and the elements that make up every photo. It’s not completely new for me, but I did learn some things which are useful. I even came up with the answer to a question at one point, in fairly correct Dutch, which was my big achievement of the evening.
We left the class with two assignments: to bring in some photos (not taken by us) which we find good or interesting, and, a bit contradictory for a course in vacation photography, to take photos in our home. I walked home happy about the class and our assignments, and feeling pretty proud of myself for being able to follow the Dutch so well, that I’m finally at that level of being able to understand. Speaking is a whole other matter, but that’s ok. I’m already very much looking forward to our next class.
If you're ever looking for a language challenge, try taking a foreign language class taught in Dutch. This is what Steph and I did with 2 years of French class.
ReplyDeleteIt's really mind bending to have to translate passages directly from French to Dutch and vice-versa!
In the end we didn't learn a word of French, but that's another story...
I think trying that would make my head break. Like sometimes on the news if there's a bit of someone speaking Spanish, I try to follow what they're saying (Spanish being the foreign language I'm best at after Dutch), but I'm also trying to read the Dutch subtitles at the same time, so it's like dual, synchronized translating.... In the end, I think I end up taking in none of it.
ReplyDeleteI also speak Spanish, and it's really hard to mix Spanish and Dutch. Whenever we travel to Spanish speaking countries, it's usually a few days before I can clear my head of Dutch and start speaking Spanish.
ReplyDeleteWe were in Chile a few years ago, and for a while I stayed in email contact with someone there. After a few months I just gave up on him, because it was too hard to speak English with Steph, Dutch with the rest of the world, then email with him in Spanish. Just too many different ways of thinking, and too stressful.
It's a shame actually that I don't do more to keep up my Spanish. I was thinking about doing a Spanish version of my blog, but again I think that would be too many languages going through my brain at the same time...
Going to any foreign country it takes me a day or two to get out of default-Dutch mode.
ReplyDeleteI'm always amazed at some multilingual situations, esp when a couple is from different countries, neither of which is NL. I work with a girl who is Bulgarian, but married to a German guy. They speak English to each other, though she also speaks good Dutch. They have kids now, who get Dutch from daycare, but the parents try to speak their native languages to them so they have ties to the families. The poor brains of those kids, but I guess doing it young is the way to go.