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WELCOME to Plezier in taal

Do you find it irritating when people answer you in English when you say something in Dutch?

.... that after all these years you still feel like a tourist in The Netherlands.
.... that you don’t always understand what is said to you in Dutch,
.... that you don’t feel really comfortable speaking in Dutch,
.... that you don’t understand your friends when they speak to each other in Dutch,
.... that you loose track in meetings when the talk switches from English to Dutch.

I have years of experience helping people from all walks of life who are struggling with Dutch language and culture. After following a Dutch language and culture course with Plezier in Taal, my students see a measurable improvement in their language ability and consequently feel more at home in The Netherlands.
Feedback I have received shows that over 90% of my students feel they have learned more during their course than they anticipated. In addition, the average satisfaction score given is 9/10.

jos

I have over 20 years experience teaching Dutch in businesses and for many years I worked for the foremost institute for language and cultural training: KIT in Amsterdam. In 2005 I took the step of starting to work for myself. I deliberately chose the name Plezier in taal to reflect my attitude to learning and languages. I take real pleasure in interaction with students and in all aspects of language and always try to bring that enjoyment of language learning over to my students.
In addition to giving lessons in Dutch language and culture, I also give French language lessons and can be an intermediary for training in other languages.

 

Best wishes,

Jos van Craaikamp

 

 

 

News

Do you want to know how good your Dutch is?

… because you’re planning to do the national exam Dutch as a Second Language (NT2);
… because, even though you passed this exam already, you still would like to brush up your Dutch;
… because you’re merely interested in the Dutch language and you’re not thinking of doing the NT2-exam;

…then the free Language Test at this Plezier in taal site is for you. Though this test will not take much of your time, it still covers practically the entire Dutch grammar and you’ll find some questions on pragmatics too, meaning: how do we say things in Dutch in a certain situation?

Good news: you will find a button Uitleg under each question. If you click here you will not only read the right answer but also an explanation in Dutch. Once you finished the test you will see how many questions you answered correctly and that’s not all …. If you would like to improve your Dutch in a nice and interesting way, then take a look at the lessons that will be especially selected for you, based upon the mistakes you made in the test. If any … For just a couple of euros per lesson you can download the lessons you need.

If you’re interested to see all 26 lessons, 22 of which are about a grammatical subject and 4 about pragmatics, all you need to do is click on ‘Course material’. Of course, if you don’t feel like doing the test, you can immediately go to ‘Course material’ and skip the test (for now). On the other hand, the topic of every lesson is related to a couple of questions in the test, so that’s quite interesting.

You can also choose to just do the test. Your results will be presented to you once you finished and you don’t need to log on.

Good luck and have fun!

* The following lessons are still missing at the moment, but you can expect to see them within short:

- Les 9   Vlieg je met me mee? (separable verbs)
- Les 16 Het zou vandaag droog blijven (zullen – zouden)
- Les 17 Er wordt op de deur geklopt (passive voice)

What do my students say about their lessons?

'We got to know Jos and her Plezier in Taal language courses through LinkedIn! We had been looking for a good Dutch teacher for one of our Italian managers for a long time, and we were very happily surprised to discover that a language can be so well studied through long distance lessons on Skype! 
Jos is a very competent teacher, full of ideas on how to match the course to your personal needs and circumstances. She is encouraging, deepens the knowledge of the language with specific cultural peculiarities and offers a broad range of exercises she sends you over the mail. Our Italian manager immediately decided to do a second -full immersion- course with Jos this summer! 
We recommend Plezier in Taal and Jos's way of working through long distance lessons to every businessperson working abroad!'

Service Category: Personal Trainer
Year first hired: 2010
Top Qualities: Expert, Good Value, Creative

Godelieve Cooymans, owner, managing director at Proaxxes srl

Click here to read what other students said about their lessons.

Who can benefit from my classes?

Expats

 

My course participants are typically living or working in The Netherlands for a short or indefinite time. Often they have just arrived in The Netherlands, but it can equally be that they have lived here for twenty or more years.
’Dutch people never correct you’ is a comment I often hear from my students. That makes it hard for them to improve their Dutch during daily life. Many of my students have a good passive knowledge of Dutch but do not dare to speak it. I help them with their knowledge and self-confidence in this area so that, after following one of my courses, they feel able and comfortable having and initiating conversations in Dutch.

Click here to read about who else can benefit from using Plezier in Taal

 

 

Writing stories in Dutch

Writing stories in a foreign language? That’s also a part of Plezier in taal!

Click here to read stories written by my students.

Dialang

The language programmes in Plezier in Taal comply with the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR), the  internationally recognised standard for assessment and comparison of language skills. This  standard has been developed for the Council of Europe.

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Test your knowledge

How good is your Dutch?

28 questions on Dutch language and culture

Klik hier voor de taaltest

Click here to test your knowledge.

Cultural differences

During the lessons we are, of course, sensitive to cultural differences. It is often not just a question of how you say something, but what you say in which situation!

More information?

If you are interested in any of the Plezier in taal courses, please send an email to mail@plezierintaal.nl or call me on 06 (31) 16 51 00 78 for further information.