It can be very hard to find native Dutch speakers to practice Dutch with if you don’t live in a Dutch speaking country.  Luckily for us in this modern age we have the internet.  There are even a few websites dedicated to pairing up people for language exchanges that some of our Facebook readers posted.

www.interpals.net

www.mylanguageexchange.com

Which then leads me to an absolutely shameless plug for our Facebook page.  I know, not everyone is into the whole social media thing.  Nevertheless, what I’ve seen on our Facebook pages (for all languages, by the way) is that people seem pretty open to helping one another through the difficult task of learning a new language.  Currently we have almost 4000 fans of the Dutch Facebook page, and growing every single day.  That includes native speakers living in the Netherlands or Belgium, native speakers living outside those countries, foreigners from all over the world, people whose parents speak Dutch who grew up in non-Dutch speaking countries who want to stay connected with the language.  The list goes on and on.  There’s probably someone out there for you to connect with too.  Don’t be shy, fan the Facebook page and start asking those native Dutch speakers for help!

Aside from the shameless plug, social media sites are becoming a fantastic way for people to extend their language learning experience.  I was hesitant to start in on it at first, but I’m really impressed with the quality of discussions that can happen on our Dutch language page.  We’ve followed the excitement of the World Cup together, debated politics, and of course, practiced Dutch.

In addition, the Facebook page is updated (almost) daily with news articles, links and websites related to recent posts, little bits of information and other topics that just didn’t make the cut for the blog.  The word of the day is posted there, where you can practice making Dutch sentences with a new word every day and get feedback from native Dutch speakers.  Or you can just strike up a conversation, or join an existing conversation.

Another useful way to use Facebook is to become a fan of Dutch language newspapers via their websites.  Many of the large Dutch newspapers will send articles directly to your Facebook feed if you become a fan.  I use this because it’s easier than checking all the websites everyday or buying a copy of every newspaper I might want to read.  It keeps me informed and practicing Dutch all at the same time.

The biggest obstacle to overcome when learning a language from afar is getting connected to that language.  I’m really glad we offer people the opportunity to connect and I hope to see you all on the Dutch language Facebook page soon!