'It' started after I flew into Belgium, fresh from two years of living and working in Istanbul, Turkey.

New Zealand expat Di Mackey

A few passionate weeks after my arrival, my man broke the news to me — gently explaining why he thought I should learn his native language.

At the ages of 10 and eight, his children spoke no English, he said, stressing also that Dutch would be useful in my daily life and that I would need it for business once I was legal.

Once I was legal … hmm, we never dreamed it would take so long to become legalised and so I signed up for Nederlands 1.1, imagining (wrongly) that I would soon have to adjust my working hours around class.

And despite the long wait to gain official residence status in Belgium, praise must go to the Flemish government's tenacious commitment to teaching new arrivals the local language.
 

To attend the same type of course I'm now attending as part of a free integration course in Belgium would cost thousands of euros back in Turkey.

Firstly, there is a EUR 20 charge for the superb workbook you use and the course is otherwise free until you reach the third level.

Initially nervous of my embarrassing linguistic incompetence, I was immediately relieved after enrolling when I saw the extremely international mix of my class.

We were like a small United Nations with students from Iraq, Iran, Turkey, Morocco, Spain, Nepal, Italy, Chile, the Congo, India, Portugal and New Zealand.

All of us were devoting 12 hours each week to the study of a language that would cause individually-catered amounts of pain.

And yet, the Arabic speakers would also tease me about needing surgery before I would be able to properly pronounce the throaty 'g', which is spoken from the back of the mouth. Not only that, there were other difficult sounds that defeated me such as 'uu', 'ei/ij', 'ui' and 'sch'.

However, not to be outdone, I grew to enjoy reading and writing the language and eventually passed the end examination.

Looking at the website of the Flemish Education Ministry though, I see that there is still a long road ahead of me as I traverse the path of 'Nederlands as a Second Language'.

The website promised that beginners courses Nederlands 1.1 and 1.2 would make me fluent in "the basic survival level of the language".

Why, I hear you ask? This is because there is no — and I mean no — rule about whether de or het (Dutch for 'the') come before the noun. The correct combination must simply be learned and memorised (just my luck!). Het boek, de vogel, de zak, het hoofd, etc … and no rule!

I didn't cry when I learned this depressing fact, but believe me — I could have.

Further into the ministry's website, I also read the courses 3.1 and 3.2 promised "real independence", allowing me "to converse with a native speaker effortlessly, understanding him and being understood".

(This seems a little idealistic and impossible at this point in my Dutch career, but I include it here nonetheless).

Finally, 4.1 and 4.2 promise "an extended autonomy" and I should be more precise in saying what I mean. Apparently, I will be able to "produce a clear, well-structured detailed text on a complex subject".

You see what I mean about commitment?

Sometimes, I look at my Belgian man and say: "I must love you a lot because I’m learning your language and doing your housework while I wait to be legalised".

He in turn will look sad and say nothing, because — as intelligent as he is — it's really not a safe idea to reply to this sort of statement.

And so I recently started out on Nederlands 1.2, but cried the week before it did, fearing the course would prove impossible. I thought I'd exhausted my language abilities with 1.1 and wondered miserably why I couldn't learn Dutch at home?

However, I was given gentle encouragement to give it a chance.

So I went and returned home full of re-discovered enthusiasm; this class was better.

There were 22 nationalities and 21 mother tongues … some people were fluent in six to seven languages, most in two to four … and then there was me, the monolingual New Zealander!

Despite the imbalance in language abilities, I thought the teacher was lovely and my classmates were friendly … it was okay. So I sent an SMS to my man accordingly, using incorrect Nederlands, unfortunately … 

So here's my confession: the course is fun — don't doubt me on this!

I've been invited to a wedding in India and if I visit Iran, another classmate has told me his family will take care of me. The woman from Portugal entertained us and organised a class gift for Ria, our beloved Nederlands 1.1 teacher and Ria threw a New Year's party for her students.

You see, I meet people — really interesting people — who are open to strangers and sound just as foolish as you when you try to say the word 'sneeuw' (snow).

You get to travel while staying in one place, to hear of the reality of one man's Iraq and another woman's India. Your classmates will cover a wide range of backgrounds and experiences … political refugees, immigrants looking for a better life and — as is often the case in my 1.2 class — partners of Belgian men.

I have found a new routine in the domestic featureless desert of being an 'in process immigrant' and actually — although I would prefer not to admit it — I'm relishing the challenge of learning a language.

Di Mackey's personal weblog can be found at http://womanwandering.blogspot.com/