READING SKILLS IN BUSINESS DUTCH

Unit 2: Het toerisme in Vlaanderen (2006)

Introduction

In Unit 2 you will read a short and simplified text fragment from the Dutch version of Wikipedia Encyclopaedia. The fragment contains a general description of the tourist trade in Flanders and Brussels.

Text Fragment

In Vlaanderen en Brussel is toerisme een belangrijke economische sector. In Vlaanderen bezoeken vooral toeristen uit de buurlanden de historische steden. Ook de Belgische kust ontvangt jaarlijks een groot aantal bezoekers. In Brussel komen veel zakenmensen, omdat hier de hoofdkwartieren van de NAVO en de Europese Unie zitten.

Text in original version: Wikipedia @ http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toerisme_in_Belgi%C3%AB

Task 1: Vocabulary

Print this page or write down the four sentences below. Read the sentences, underline the words you do not understand and write down the meaning of the words you already know.

In Vlaanderen en Brussel is toerisme een belangrijke economische sector.
In Vlaanderen bezoeken vooral toeristen uit de buurlanden de historische steden.
Ook de Belgische kust ontvangt jaarlijks een groot aantal bezoekers.
In Brussel komen veel zakenmensen, omdat hier de hoofdkwartieren van de NAVO en de Europese Unie zitten.

Click on the Vocabulary link to compare your answers and to find out the meaning of the words or phrases you do not understand. Note that words which appear in the Glossary of earlier Units will not be repeated.

Task 2: Word Groups

You will now have to divide the sentences into word groups using forward slashes. If you do not remember what a word group is, you can reread the information given under Task 2 in Unit 1.

Example: In Vlaanderen en Brussel / is / toerisme / een belangrijke economische sector.

Once you have finished, you may compare your answers with those on the Feedback Page .

Task 3: Grammar and Syntax

Now answer the following grammatical and syntactical questions. Note that these questions are considerably easier to answer if you know about sentence structure in Dutch.

Sentence 1:

Identify the subject. Remark on its position in the sentence; in other words, why is the subject item three in the sentence?
Identify all adjectives.

Sentence 2:

Identify the finite verb. What is its person?
Find an adverb. To read more on adverbs, click here.
Find a direct object. If you do not know what direct objects are, click here.

Sentence 3:

Identify the finite verb. What tense is it?
Find a direct object

Sentence 4:

Identify the subject of the main clause.
Identify the subordinate clause. If you do not know about subordinate clauses in Dutch, click here.

After finishing the exercise you can check your answers on the Feedback Page, where you will also find some annotations to these questions.

Task 4: Word Forms

You will now have to identify the head-words or stems of a series of words from the text. If you do not remember what a stem is, you can reread the information given under Task 4 in Unit 1. Click here for this interactive, self-correcting exercise.

Task 5: Text Comprehension

Now that you have worked your way through the first four Tasks of this Unit, you should be able to answer a set of questions on the content of the text. This is again an interactive, self-correcting test. You will be given three statements in Dutch relating to the text. Some of them are correct, others incorrect. You are asked to tick the true or false answer boxes. Click here to enter the exercise.

Task 6: Glossary

Finally, you should try to memorise the following words from the text. Note that when these words reappear in later Units, they will be considered to be known by the learner – but you can of course always look up their meaning in the Glossary!

1. in: [in; prep]

2. het Vlaanderen: het deel van België waar men Vlaams spreekt [Flanders; noun]

3. het toerisme: reizen die je voor je plezier maakt [tourism; noun]

4. economisch: economische zaken hebben met de economie te maken [economic; adj]

5. bezoeken: naar een plaats of naar mensen komen [to visit; verb]

6. vooral: in het bijzonder; voornamelijk [especially, in particular; adv]

7. uit: [out (of), from; prep]

8. de stad: een plaats waar veel mensen samenwonen [city, town; noun]

9. ook: [also; adv]

10. Belgisch: Belgische zaken hebben met België te maken [Belgian; adj]

11. ontvangen: (hier) als gast begroeten [to receive; verb]

12. groot: niet klein [large; adj]