KNS - more dreaded than the portfolio (if that's even possible!)

Every Thursday in class is KNS day.  Or Welkom in Nederland (that is the course book).  I hate it.  No, hate is a strong word.  I love learning about the Netherlands and the history and the culture.  I do not love learning about the bureaucracy.  Not one little bit.  Last week we had a series of tests from the first five chapters of Welkom in Nederland and one of the tests I failed!  I was absolutely mortified with myself (I only failed by two questions, but fail=fail).  I don't fail.  Ever.  Well, except that one exam the day after Melbourne Cup 1998, but we won't discuss that...  I thought that I would be good to go by now with the KNS exam, but clearly I need to spend some more time learning how long the Consultatiebureau will be poking their noses into my life once I have children. 

The site I posted about last week has been really helpful, I've been using it regularly for the tegenstellingen oefeningen and I also have an even bigger list of words given to me by my teacher to study.  Yesterday I downloaded and installed the elektronisch praktijkexamen,which if you haven't already done run, don't walk!  I've already done the practice test once, and this time around I scored 90% (which I think is the same as last time - I must have made the same mistakes), so if I can score that well, everyone can!  The downside is, you don't find out which answers were incorrect to improve.  I'll have to sit down and do the test again with Maarten to ensure I get it right.

My next plan is to download and install the kennis Nederlandse samenleving which I've also already practiced (82%) so surely can improve upon that result.  My biggest problem is that I have such strong opinions about the samenleving and I need to remember to give the answer that they want, not the answer that I believe is correct!

If you've done the practice exams, tell me how you went.  If you haven't do them, then tell me how you went!  And to those of you who are studying, enjoy the summer holidays!  I can't wait to have a couple of extra nights to myself each week again.  I don't know what I'm going to do with myself!  What plans do you have?  Extra study?  Knocking the portfolio on the head?  Taking a break from the entire business?  I know I've got a wedding to plan - I've got less than three months to go!

available at bol.com if you don't already have it.

Practice Practice Practice!

Last week at school, my teacher gave us a new learning tool.  It is a website with a lot of different practice tests, and then at the end of each you can do a small test to see how you went. You can use it here:  wandel-abc.nl

I've so far found it to be invaluable.  I feel like I have most of the inburgering exam stuff under my belt after completing one of the practice exams in class, but I was finding it difficult to learn opposites (eg. 'dik' and 'dun').  This site is brilliant for that!  I obviously have no clue as to the actual usefulness of the site when it comes time to sit the exams, but it's teaching me vocab, which is the most important thing for me now (now that I'm learning how to make sentences properly and understand grammar better thanks to my last post).

Now, as usual the KNS oefeningen is very preachy.  Example:

Perhaps it's just me, but I don't feel that preaching healthy behaviour is essential for immigration..?  But hey.  I was born under a rock (in the minds of the creators of the inburgering course), so I clearly do not know what is good for me.  I need to be told.

All jibes aside, check out the site, it is VERY useful!

Why is that word where it is??

A couple of weeks ago I had a small melt down in one of my lessons.  We were set a task to re-write sentences using different tenses and I just couldn't do it.  Maybe it's because I'm a native English speaker (or just a bit slow haha) but switching the words around in a sentence is completely strange to me.

I discussed it with my teacher and we came up with a new plan.  Clearly the level that I have been placed in is slightly above me.  I don't struggle to understand, just struggle to answer using correct grammar.  I think it's great that the level is difficult - better than the opposite, right?  The problem really is though that the course I'm in assumes that I already know the basics.  That I have been studying to get to A2 already, not just taking an entrance exam and being put into a class when I hadn't done anymore than just try to pick Dutch up as I went along.  Because that was how my Dutch was (who am I kidding, is), making sentences and knowing the grammar was way over my head.  I just don't understand why there is some times a random zijn or is at the end of a sentence.  I find it so frustrating not knowing the rules!  I'm here waiting for that light to go on, you know?  Then I'll just have gone over the hump and everything will be much easier (you can see I'm something of an instant gratification type person).

We decided together that aside from our regular course work, I needed to do some extra work to pick up the grammar and be able to make a damned sentence properly.  The Lovely Teacher loaned me one of her books, Eenvoudige Basisgrammatica NT2 and I need to complete 3 or 4 lessons from the book each week as home work.  There are 40 lessons in the book, so if I complete 4 lessons per week I'll be fluent and ready to take on the world in 10 weeks (I kid, obviously)!

The thing is, this book might really do the trick for me.  It's teaching me how to do it all, right from the very basics of how to put a sentence together, i.e.wie / doet / (wat, waar, hoe).  I'm loving it!  If you're like me and have been struggling along with Pigeon Dutch for a long time, this is truly the book for you.  Loads of practice tasks, loads of verbs and their tenses, plus a long list of words with their prefixes and suffixes (haven't used those terms since about grade 4 at school!).  Obviously I'm only a few lessons in, and I expect the grammar to get much more difficult, but I'm excited about completing it.  After borrowing it from my teacher I went out and bought it.

Take a look.  It will help make learning less of a chore.  I promise.