Best method/books/CD's etc for learning Dutch?

[hascas]

I am english and married to a dutchman (we live in the UK) and have made some half-hearted attempts to learn the beautiful language. I tried "Teach Yourself Dutch" and even went along to a class (but didn't really "gel" with the teacher). We speak mostly english at home, altho he speaks dutch with DCs. My in-laws and dutch friends are no real help because they all end up speaking in English with me!

I would really love to hold a decent conversation in dutch and, as a result, encourage my children to speak more dutch too. Any advice/help gratefully received! We live in Buckinghamshire so any local groups/info would be fab too .

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I was in a similar situation years ago. My ex (who's also DS's dad) is Dutch. I started a class where we were using Code Nederlands, but had difficulty fitting it into my free time. Plus, they weren't teaching us much. So, I started self-study using this book along with this cd-rom and an older (cassette) version of VocabuLearn. I thought they were very good, but never did complete them . I plan to go back & do them again from scratch, along with DS which will hopefully help him communicate with his Dutch brother. I've been trying to find material aimed at children learning Dutch, but can't find any. I'm hoping someone else on here will.

I checked another site that I've used for Dutch info in the past & this peron might be able to help you. She's in the opposite situation but she might help with your Dutch. It means signing up with another forum though.

You could try a foreign book website at www.mothertonguebooks.co.uk they have a lot of resources including games.

Where in Bucks are you? I have a good reading knowledge of Dutch but my spoken is terrible (despite having lived in Flanders for almost 5 years).

Hi hascas

My DH is a native Dutch speaker too and I learned using this course I would highly recommend it.

It does also have a tape/cd, however my dh was rofl when he heard it, he said that it was seriously posh and only the queen spoke like that!! If your DH was willing to help you with the pronounciations, then you wouldn't need the tape.

It starts off by teaching you all the different sounds of the letters and the combination of letters by giving you examples of words that use these sounds. Then it starts to join the words up. eg De tuin is mooi (the garden in beautiful). So, now you have learned to say the garden is beautiful, you can then say the anything is anything IYSWIM.

I was absolutely amazed at how quickly I picked it up because I was a real duffer at languages in school.

Veel gelluk