|
|
- Newspapers
Newspapers are the type of material that can be found online most easily, but this does not mean that they are easiest to read or understand. Newspaper articles tend to be short, giving no more context than is absolutely necessary. Unless you have a prior understanding of current issues in Dutch/Belgian politics, you may find yourself somewhat lost. Still, it can be interesting to scan through them, particularly if you can find articles on international topics that you know something about.
- De Telegraaf
- De Volkskrant
- NRC Handelsblad
- De Standaard
- Metro
- Magazines
The same caveats as for newspapers apply. Magazines usually make for lighter reading, but they are more likely to be filled with random English borrowings, which makes them less than ideal practice, and their websites are often rather incomplete.
- Women's magazines
- Flair
- Margriet
- Viva
- Esta
- Men's magazines
- Adversus
- Panorama
- Voetbal
- Books
Books are perhaps the best practice of all, because they contain long stretches of prose in an ongoing context. (Here is a list of some books I've read in Dutch which I think are interesting/useful for learners.) They can be quite difficult to find in the US. Your best bet may be to convince vacationing friends to bring something back for you. That said, here are two places from which I've successfully procured Dutch books.
- Schoenhof's is a large foreign-language bookstore just off the Harvard campus in Cambridge. When I'm in Boston, I usually stock up, but you can also buy through the website and they'll special order things for you.
- Boeknet is the Dutch equivalent of Amazon.com--a large general-interest online bookstore. I once placed an order with them rather than Schoenhof's because I wanted some audiobooks that would have been quite expensive to get in the U.S. The shipping and tax were painfully expensive, but I found what I wanted and they shipped it surprisingly quickly.
- Other websites
These are some websites that don't correspond to any particular publication, but offer a good amount of text to read.
- Portals
- Dutch Digital Library.
- Univeristy of Vienna NEDWEB front page.
- University College, London offers a Virtual Department of Dutch.
- Sites on specific topics
- De Klomperij is an entire site about clog-making across Europe.
- Geschiedenis.nl offers articles book reviews and short news articles about recent historical discoveries.
- Kookhistorie presents historical cookbook texts with a blog discussing the author's attempts to recreate very old recipes.
|