Studying for the basisexamen inburgering / Basic Civic Integration Exam
I passed the basisexamen inburgering (Basic Civic Integration Exam) last month! I was fairly confident coming out of the exam, bar one answer that I had hemmed and hawed over [and one that I had practiced many, many times!] I also got a really great score, which I am very happy about.
When I was preparing, I found a lot of resources for the inburgering but not for the basisexamen. [This post was a useful exception] so I thought I’d write up how my prep went:
Basics:
Duolingo
I’d been using Duolingo for years, studying Dutch off and on. Last November, I finally finished the course — there is an end to that seemingly endless scroll! This gave me a pretty good vocabulary, but not usable grammar, and I felt I was lacking in pronunciation practice. I was in Holland in October and I couldn’t make myself understood at most shops with whatever Duolingo words I knew. (I could order oliebollen, so there’s that) That said, I do think it is absolutely worth it, because now I can read a lot of Dutch, and I didn’t find it difficult to make sentences when studying for the basisexamen. That said, if you are preparing for the basisexamen, don’t do Duolingo in isolation. But if you’re preparing to take it someday…. start Duolingo now.
Approach:
Are you studying Dutch to pass the exam, or studying Dutch to really speak Dutch? I think there’s a tendency to only learn enough to just pass the basisexamen, and while studying for the exam might mean you’ll take a targeted approach. I didn’t feel like I was purely studying for the exam, because I studied a fair bit of basic grammar as well.
Before I began studying, my friend Mohsin — who passed the Inburgering recently! — gave me a TON of resources, including an intimidating number of books, as well as a bunch of practice questions. I remember opening the practice questions file and feeling absolutely clueless — I didn't know how I could ever put a single sentence together. I’m really glad that by the end of my time studying, I could do all those questions pretty easily.
Resources:
Anki:
Anki is incredible. It’s an app for learning via spaced repetition, and it is how I have supplemented studying for Arabic, and Persian, as well as Launch School.
I used available shared decks on Anki, (this is a list of Dutch shared decks) as well as created my own for the Knowledge of Dutch Society section, and added words I learned during my italki lessons. And there’s a great extension to generate audio for your cards. This was hugely helpful, and I pretty much only have cards with Dutch audio now. This is also particularly useful for the listening questions, and helps develop a ear for the language, since at this level you might not be watching / listening to Dutch content in any other way. As you can see in the screenshot on this page, I also used a card template with images. This is a painstaking exercise to add images to dozens of cards — but it is really useful if you can use word association. For example, for geboren I used a photo like this
Naar Nederland:
I ordered the Naar Nederland materials online. They’re also available to download here, and while I found it useful to have the book, you can probably do without. I suppose I will possibly use it a lot when I take the Inburgering.
Books:
If you already have some basic Dutch grammar, the Naar Nederland materials and the practice exams are sufficient. If not… you will need some help.
I did not have any grammar knowledge beyond whatever I’d learned in Duolingo. I also did not study grammar from a book because I was taking lessons with teachers who had grammar materials. I did revise using Nederlands in gang [thanks Mohsin] which is for the A2 level but had a lot of useful exercises and really clear explanations.
italki / Dutch teachers:
In December, I began taking regular Dutch lessons on italki, which I’ve used over the years to study Arabic and Persian, as well as to teach/practice conversational Urdu and Punjabi. I booked multiple lessons with three different teachers, and each one had a different skill set and way of teaching. So I worked with two teachers who were quite focused on prep for the exam, and with another one on improving my conversational skills, as well as prep for the exam.
I took at least two to three lessons a week. This was intense but fairly doable. Most of my classes were at night my time anyway, so it didn’t feel very disruptive. In most lessons, we would go over grammar concepts, do practice exam questions, as well as have basic conversation about our days, cities, the weather, work, etc. We also did a lot of great conversation practice, including my favourite — explaining the plot of the film You’ve Got Mail in Dutch!
Studying:
Naar Nederland book:
The first thing I did was complete the Naar Nederland book. The instructions say you can miss some of the lessons; I did all of them, and I would recommend you do so too. In fact I went back to the initial lessons several times again to practice pronunciation when it became apparent that that was my weakest link. The comprehension exercises are very useful — and they also have lots of common scenarios that I found very useful in real life. I also added a lot of the words to Anki. I wish I had done this right when I started but I’m glad I got quite a lot done.
Reading / Speaking:
These two sections of the exam involve being able to read and understand spoken and written Dutch. For the speaking section, there are lots of lists and flashcards for basic questions online, taken from the practice exams and other sources. My advice is to use questions as a starting point and think of similar questions that could be around this — you want to have enough vocabulary and understanding of the question to be flexible, and not only have fixed scenarios. You can get a sense of what these questions are like from the practice exams.
In the beginning I’d often make long, complicated sentences for the speaking exercises. This is probably because I was typing them out — and when I’d try to say them out in lessons I’d often get lost. Start simple, and then build it up once you understand conjunctions and sentence structures.
Practice exams:
Do the practice exams! I did them so many, many times I’ve lost count. They are extremely useful. Use these exams as your guide. Be prepared to answer questions in this vein, and to develop a vocabulary that would allow you to answer these.
Knowledge of Dutch Society:
This is the easiest part to study for, in my opinion. Watch the video several times, and study the questions from the Naar Nederland photo book. I revised using an Anki deck, as well as from the photo book.
This is what one of my Anki cards looked like. As you can see, it has audio too!
Timeline:
I started studying seriously in December, and scheduled my exam in January, and received an exam date in February. In retrospect, I could have probably scheduled it for the end of January.
One of my issues — which I discovered when I studied Arabic in 2018 — is that as an adult I feel very underprepared for exams when studying, and so I tend to over-prepare. There’s no point at which I feel supremely confident, and perhaps thats to do with the language aspect of it and the stakes. That said, I went from virtually no conversation to conversational within two months, and that’s with work, life, and other things. This is how the timeline went:
November — finish Duolingo
December - January - Naar Nederland book
January - February — italki lessons
The lowdown:
You have to practice. Up until I gave the exam in the first week of February, I was pretty much doing Anki everyday - sometimes twice a day, additional revision of Duolingo, and two-three lessons a week, if not more. That said, I was aiming to give it as soon as I felt ready; you may have a different schedule. In any case, veel succes!
Sidenote:
I found this book in Karachi. I did not use it, but what an idea! (Of course, Dutch and Urdu pronunciation do not match but it’s an interesting approach…)
