Dutch Fun! (damentals) (hackerhotel2025)

This workshop is especially for all attendants who are not Dutch natives. In an exact and logical manner I will guide you through the syntax and semantics of the Dutch language, from sounds (the famous 'ggh' and vowel inventory) to gender of nouns and word order. There will be simple illustrations to help you get a grip on the language and bluff your way into pub talk with locals. Please bring pen and paper for the old school school experience! I am a Dutch native teacher Dutch as a second language, with experience teaching expats. My background in general linguistics and artificial intelligence as well as participating in the hackers' community enables me to present a language workshop tailored for hackers. In fact, as a teacher for a a general audience I must refrain myself from being too "logical, analytical or just plain geeky" to keep all students happy. In this workshop I will focus on: * providing structure of the Dutch language, similar to how you would explain a programming language, showing the regularities that are present * giving small examples of words as well as expressions and grammatical rules to show a more specific idea of Dutch * interaction: exercises, individually and in groups, puzzle-like, but also speaking exercises (this is always a tough one, so we'll try) * concrete focus will be on gender of nouns: the article "the" in English can be "de" or "het" in Dutch, depending on the gender. Some grammar (demonstratives, adjectives) depends on this gender, following small yet counterintuitive rules * have fun: I will present weird exceptions, false friends and we will also listen to and analyze a Dutch song Licensed to the public under http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 about this event: https://pretalx.hackerhotel.nl/2025/talk/NZZUQV/