I am learning dutch and I’ve made this course as a personal to-learn list. The focus is on intermediate level abstract nouns, verbs, adverbs and other speech parts, but not every term is purely an abstract one.
Every time I encounter a new dutch word or expression during practice, I spend some time checking via Reverso / Google Translate / online dictionaries what are the main, most fitting translations, then I use a good quality TTS bot to read it for me so that I can upload the record as well. When a word has multiple synonyms, priority is given to the word which is phonetically more distant from its english counterpart, so for example “sturen” is preferred to “zenden” when presenting the translation of the english verb “to send”.
Now, even with all these cool technological tweaks, mistakes can be done, so if you are a native dutch speaker and you’re willing to help, I’d like to ask you if you could check my translations and pronunciations. Extra suggestions on the course structure and term choice are welcomed too. With your help I can make this course more valuable and accessible to everyone, not just me.
Groetjes
P.S. oh btw the course picture is “The Red Mill” by Piet Mondrian (1911).
Small update: today I finished studying my own course, and instead of celebrating I decided to add two extra lessons for good measure! Now “Abstract Dutch” features 30 lessons, for a grand total of 450 words (synonyms excluded), all provided with audio files. To my great disappointment, I’ve noticed that the tts-bot I was using is no longer available for free on the web, so I downloaded an evaluation copy of its company’s software and recorded the last words so that I could complete the course. That being said, it’s unlikely I’ll carry on with this: when the software expires, Lotte the Memrise bot will be no more.
Anyway, back to the good stuff. I’m pretty satisfied with the final outcome and I think this is an overall good course, so, if you’re learning dutch or know someone that does, please consider trying it or sharing it! Also, if you find any errors, please report them in this thread asap.
Thank you for your attention!
@Hydroptere that TTS you linked (Google Translate perhaps?) is pretty awful and that’s the reason why I’ve been using Lotte for this project instead.
About Wikitionary, I considered using those audios at first, but then I noticed they are .ogg files, a format Memrise doesn’t support, so I dropped it. Another reason for this is that I wanted to hear a voice as neuter and clear as possible.
Wikitionary: you can save them directly as mp3, you can change it without any loss… I have no probs with that in my own courses… what ever, did not want to “make pressure” on you.
Unfortunately, my accent is probably quite strong lately, otherwise I would gladly help with the recording… there are some natives in the forum, maybe they can help? I’ve asked for help with audio many times, and in some cases I did get help (my dutch sentences course, etc)
I still can’t find a way to download them as mp3s, I only see the .ogg option, maybe I just have to look around a bit more. Whatevs, it wouldn’t change things much at this point, as I consider this course to be officially over. Besides, if I’ll ever need someone in the future to speak dutch for me, I’ll give a holler in here. A holler to hollanders! Bye
Bye