Something I am enjoying a lot at the moment is my Dutch language class. This term I am doing Dutch 3 at TAFE.
Last week we worked on the perfect tense (e.g. “I have worked” Ik heb gewerkt) which seems straightforward enough, apart from needing to remember the conjugation rules. We also continued working on separable verbs (zich generen “to feel embarrassed”; Ik geneer me “I feel embarrassed”, Wij generen ons “We feel embarrassed”, etc.) - these separable verbs, of which Dutch has lots, are quite challenging. My grammar book defines a separable verb as “one with a prefix (e.g. opbellen “to ring up”) which separates from the verb and stands at the end of the clause in the present and imperfect tenses (e.g. Hij belde mij op) and which permits the ge- of the past participle to be inserted between it and the rest of the verb, e.g. Hij heeft mij opgebeld.” (Dutch: A comprehensive grammar, p. 334)
The thing that I find most fascinating and most frustrating about learning a language is the rules. The adult mind has so much difficulty trying to grasp rules that babies seem to just pick up in their first few years of life. You just seem to know the rules in your first language, without having to think about them, and without being able to describe them, necessarily - and everything flows naturally.
When you learn another language you have to start all over again and can take nothing for granted. It also makes you appreciate your first language a lot more, I find.
