Week 1: Beginning

 The Start

  

    

    It began on a day like any other in Portland, with worryingly cloudy skies on the verge of bursting. My friend Chloé and I were discussing the details of senior projects and she told me her plan: to learn as much Italian and Dutch over the course of a month as possible. I was instantly fascinated by the prospect because further bolstering my lingual skills was always an interest of mine, but one that I had kept pushing to an unnamed future date. However, here was the perfect opportunity to pursue language expertise and with the benefit of a partner.

    I jumped on the proposal to work together and we began planning out a flexible outline to learn both Italian and Dutch. I personally had learned French for three years before and had recognized similar words between Italian and French. On the other hand, I also knew people who spoke Dutch fluently and found it fun to compare sounds between Dutch and English. In learning both Italian and Dutch, with their very different structures both visually and audibly, I hoped to gain a better understanding of the many differences between international languages.

    Starting the project, Chloé and I dived in immediately, memorizing basic words and pronunciations in both languages to start. After finishing with those, we began practicing introductory conversations. The pronunciation was considerably harder for Dutch than Italian and we often ended up laughing at our attempts at speaking Dutch. However, we improved gradually and reached a place where we could speak introductory Dutch without stumbling too much. Also, through learning basic vocabulary, we began to identify patterns of sounds signified by a grouping of letters. Noticing these trends will help us with pronouncing more difficult vocabulary in the near future.

    In addition to learning and familiarizing ourselves with these completely new languages, we began delving into other basic aspects, such as the days of the week, numbers, weather, likes and dislikes, and family members. While we are far from proficient, we hope to build our comfort with those words and phrases going into the next week as well as to start to analyze basic grammar structures and learn initial common verb conjugations. We have already prepared to continue that work by setting up tables for verb conjugations and researching more complex vocabulary. In this way, we can begin writing in those languages as well, relying on the vocabulary and grammar that we will know.

    Our goals for our senior project are simple: continue practicing our conversational skills, build upon our vocabulary, and learn the different grammar structures as well as their application depending on the context. In addition, we hope to integrate the cultural aspect of each of these languages when we begin to have a solid foundation to depend upon in each of these languages. To that end, we recorded our beginning conversations in Italian and Dutch, which are linked below and we apologize for any potential offense towards the Italian and Dutch communities.

Introductory Italian Conversation

Introductory Dutch Conversation