Ongoing interest, new challenge

For quite a while I've been following the blog of a Dutch woman, mostly in perfect English, but now and then with an entry in Dutch.  And I follow a Twitter account of medieval manuscripts from a Dutch scholar, again mostly English, but now and then Dutch.

So I decided I'd like to acquire a reading knowledge of Dutch just so I won't be totally baffled when I encounter it.  The hitch here is that almost all the sources I followed up were about acquiring conversational Dutch, with a view to visiting.  Not what I'm interested in.  

There is one book devoted to acquiring a reading knowledge, only available to students signed up for a three credit course at the local community college.  That expense is wildly beyond what I can seriously consider.  So I continue my search.

Meanwhile, I did find this course, which has a book as well as cd, and a glossary. 

I'm working my way through dialogs, to get the hang of the structure, and I'm already trying my hand at understanding the Wikipedia Dutch entry on Maria von Gelders, whose  book of prayer is a prime medieval artwork.  This course  has a book, glossary, and reading practice, too.  So it's a start.  And here's what I'm trying to work through:

https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_van_Gelre_(1380_-_na_1427)  
I had a time finding the right Maria, and the illustration of her prayer book was my landmark. If you're interested in her in general, there are Wikipedia entries in English.


Since I'm the ultimate self teacher, this approach is about right. I don't do well learning in a group, always out of tempo with the general movement.


Which all reminds me of a comic situation long ago, when I ran an ESL program, largely for newly arrived immigrants, which was about acquiring daily language. Really different sort of request came in when I was asked by the Ivy League university in town to provide for them a special section for visiting Chinese science scholars, all of whom had a fluent technical reading knowledge of English in the sciences, and zero ability to navigate daily spoken life in the US.  Which we did, and eased their lives a bit.  So I'm coming at this from the other end!