A first, tentative sign that my attempt to learn Dutch may be working: managed to understand parts of a German-language movie that was on in the background as I was writing the other day. Some basic dialogue I understood entire; some where I could unwind longish sentences syntactically, but with holes for words I didn't know. All of this is encouraging, since I know or can fake my way through most Romance languages but Germanic languages have always been gibberish to me.
I did realize that even for me, who studies the Dutch 17th century rather extensively, Dutch will be a skill of limited usefulness. Only one of Grotius' major works--The Jurisprudence of Holland--was written in Dutch, and perhaps a quarter of his letters. Nevertheless, it will be a welcome skill to have.
"Thou shalt not extinguish thine anger, but shall master it,
that thy conscience may not be blunted by adjustment
to wrong causes."
-The Dutch Ten Commandments to Foil the Nazis
No comments:
Post a Comment