slap jij noch?

vader jacob vader jacob
slap jij noch?
slap jij noch?

(aleklai something something..)

ding dong bell!
ding dong bell!

okay, it's 'are you sleeping' - the children rhyme in dutch. i wish to study the language properly one day, to be able to write, read and speak it fluently.

why dutch? because i want to be multi languages. because dutch shared many words with indonesian language - it should be easier for me to master it then maybe, since i understand indonesian? because one of these days, i want to visit holland (again), not during the winter season, but during spring or summer (i want to lay on a yellow tulips bed :P ). because i already have an essential dutch phrase book and a dutch-english, english-dutch dictionary. because i know the phonetics of each of its 26/27 alphabets (which enables me to pronounce and figure out the spelling of words correctly even if i do not know its meaning). because i already know a substantial amount dutch words (spelling and pronunciation of each of them) and able to construct simple sentences using them. . because i would like to be able to 'slap' someone to his face in dutch. ('unscript' this if u want to know :P). because dutch sounds interesting.

how come? i stayed three months in den haag - the city of peace and justice, i visited utrecth, amsterdam, rotterdam, etc (holland is only as big as pahang but is the main exporter of milk products and has been in world cup finals ever since i remember watching them). i was there when milosevich died during his trial. i was....long story.. i may write on my three months experience in holland later, insyaAllah. and by the way, i was not treated justly while i was there. ironic.

i was hoping that uitm's apb does offers the language as they have european language department but no. as uitm is my next learning destination (offers the cheapest fee, compatible learning centre with appropriate course and course structure not to mention i am 99% sure of being accepted as student - so uitm it is, period), i have to look for another language to learn (master?).

the nearest to the netherlands, geographically, is german and france which both languages are being offered there, so my next choice will be either of these two (assuming that neighbouring countries speak languages from the same family thus the simmilarity). french sounds interesting but german is the more likely to be chosen. dutch is, by the way, a germanic language.

but french is spoken (as mother-tounge ie fluently or partly spoken fluently) by 270 million people where as dutch has only around 22 million speakers. if i am to travel around the world one day (yeah, it's in my to do list) or work with muliti-national company (dream on), it will help (like i will be able to speak the language after 6 credit units, haha. hey, who knows? may be i have the flair in learning new languages? inysaAllah).

and is one of the six un official languages (perhaps i should choose chinese to this effect? i am, after all living in a country with more then a quarter of its population are chinese and now seldom being trapped in the middle of my chinese collegues' conversation and not understand what they were saying (read : rude behaviour?!) and chinese, by the way, is spoken by a larger number then french speakers, together with english and indian (yup, indian - to my surprise!)

perhaps i should based my decision on the possible places which offer good (and reasonable affordable fee and easy (?) ) phd course in industrial and organisational psychology as preparation? or language which has abundant written references on i&o?

or, should i choose arabic, again, since the subject is called third language, not fourth?

i still cannot make up my mind