"in de gaten hebben" is an expression from midieval times, where knights wore armor. The helmet visor had holes in it, for the knight to see. Obviously it would make it difficult to see everything, because his view would be obstructed by parts of his visor. But that which he could see, he would see it through the holes. He would "have it in the holes" All these sayings have some origin. Because most arent remembered, they make no sense to people now, but back in the day, they would have made sense as they were a reference to somethins gespecific
Makes sense to me......in de gaten houden meaning I'm keeping you within the holes in my visor where I can see you and my view is not blocked by the metal....
Never thought about it before she mentioned it in this video, "in de gaten houden". Thank you for your explanation, it make sense. Maybe like "verkeerd verbonden" of "nummer draaien" which don't make sense with our modern communication systems. I live in an older house with light "switches" that turn, not like a dimmer but to "turn" the lights on, versus flipping switches, or pushing buttons. Ways of saying things based on how we used them as they were created, as things evolve, the language changes/evolves. Like turning the stove higher with cooking, if you cook electric it technically is not turning things higher but hotter, no gas flames to turn low or high. Or words that disappear like "de knaak" fl. 2,50, and "kwartje" fl 0,25 with the introduction of the € /euro.
My favourite Dutch idiom to use in English is 'all madness on a little stick'. The English speakers usually look at me as if they see water burning, when I say this.
My absolute favourite is "van twee walletjes eten", more or less literally translated it becomes "to eat of two little dykes". And yes, I realize there is an "f" missing to make this truly scandalous in English, but it's close enough to raise some eyebrows.
A really weird Dutch idiom: de kat in 't donker knijpen. The literal translation is 'pinching the cat in darkness', the true meaning is 'being very scared. But there's also: loop naar de maan - walk to the moon loop naar de pomp - walk to the pump (gas station) val dood - fall dead yes, we Dutch are a weird bunch.
@@bobosims1848 Loop naar de pomp is not about gasstation, but about the old fashion waterpumps... Each village had at least one of them, where everybody obtained their water.
@@sjefhendrickx2257 Well I got from A1 to C1 in a year and 7 months, but then it took me 3,7 extra years to graduate as a high-school studying full-time in Dutch to get to a native speaker level.
tammo100 swearing with diseases, is more a thing from the western part of The Netherlands (or in bigger cities). As someone who is born and raised in the province of Groningen, I know a lot of swearing words in dialect, but we don't use diseases.
Ah yes, prepositions, also known as 'closet words' (kastwoorden) in dutch to make things a little easier for me at the basisschool: you have to look at it in regards to the closet: bij de kast, naast de kast, op de kast, in de kast, achter de kast. So if you take the noun that you want to refer to, and replace it with 'kast' things might get a little easier. Unless it is not meant to be literal, for instance in the case of at school = op school. Cause school itself is a reference to the place and not building, because then it becomes: at the school building = in/bij (think about kast for this one) het schoolgebouw. It is, I think, always 'op' when it is meant non-literal. Hope this helps somewhat!
Try to figure out the correct emphasises (?) on "voorkomen": "Het kan voorkomen dat iemand met een mooi voorkomen, wil voorkomen dat ze moet voorkomen." (It can happen that somebody with a nice appearance wants to prevent she must appear in court.) Enjoy.😏🙋♂️
The thing I've noticed in most languages, people can get the context from broken grammar but it's really hard when a word is pronounced differently than it's meant to be. Now Dutch isn't nearly as punishing in this as for example Cantonese but there kind of is only one way to say a word. We might contextually get it or if you speak in a different accent our mind goes 'ahh, then they will pronounce X as Y' automatically and we can understand someone who speaks generally less clean Dutch than you do. I understand 'Bibliotheek waar is die weet u?' (Library, where is, you know?) with correct pronunciation better than 'Weet u waar de bibliotheek is?' (do you know where the library is?) with poor or wonky pronunciation. I don't try to misunderstand people on purpose, it's just that I notice my brain automatically switches to sort of predictive text based on your accent, and when you are learning words you are generally learning the "accentless" ABN (Algemeen beschaafd Nederlands/General polite Dutch) version. Makes my mind expect the ABN version of words. So if you then pronounce a word in a not ABN way, my brain goes 'well I don't know that word at all'.
Well explained perhaps your onto something with the differences between grammar vs pronunciation. I know my grammar tends to be more irritating to listeners where as wrong/mumbled pronunciation is mostly when people misunderstand
@@bishplis7226 ‘algemeen beschaafd nederlands’ translates better as ‘general civilised dutch’. We don’t use this term anymore because it refers to a time (not so long ago) when people who spoke a dutch or flemish dialect were seen as ‘uncivilised’ by people with a higher education.
Zaklamp - pitch-lamp - knijpkat depending on where you are in the Netherlands. Hoie - Doei - Dag - Houdoe - etc. depending on where you are in the Netherlands. tuut - zakje - tas - etc. depending on where you are in the Netherlands.
My favourite translated idioms are: now comes the monkey out of the sleeve, we give them a cookie of their own dough, is there something on the hand? And he who burns his butt must sit on the blisters
Funny that you would begin with prepositions. As a German speaker, we probably use the same prepositions as the Dutch, I always had difficulties using the correct prepositions in English.
Dutch swearing also depends on region. In Brabant, we throw around intimate body parts a lot. To spice it up you can also add diseases or add in sexual preferences. In the city of Tilburg, half the classic slang dictionary consists of words that refer to another as mentally incapable. We can also refer to annoying people by calling them a certain forms of food, like pannekoek, koekwaus or kokosmakroon. These add a sense of humor as well. Likewise, one can call someone who bears charismatic scars of sleeping around too much "een afgelikte boterham."
Always a pleasure to watch your videos Casey! I've been learning Dutch for around 10 months now and your content has definitely helped me progress faster. Would be awesome to see you make a video speaking entirely in Dutch. Keep up the great content, looking forward to the next one!
Dutch is like a videogame... Level 1 is easy, level 2 and 3 too... But after that you have level 22, 23, 24, 25... And it will never stop... Dutch is not a language, Dutch is a high school study... It's comes close to work!!!! :-)
@@Yochemm and then you have the fun 3 separate languages we have in our country Low Saxon Dutch and Frisian so like trying to translate those can also be fun niet voor mij maar voor sommigen wel
I've never thought of huid and hout sounding alike. I can so understand that a Dutch person wouldn't understand you if you switch them up. My initial response would also be: hè wat? You want to buy a table made of skin??
German here. I can confirm this. To me, both - or rather each - _ui_ and _ou_ sound like _au_ . If I get to compare them side-by-side, then maybe _ou_ is a "cleaner" _au_ whereas _ui_ is an _au_ in a "(stereotypically) gay" accent...????
Interesting though, most foreigners I know struggle especially with pronouncing the "ui". But I can imagine that once you mastered that, it makes things only more complicated in some way :)
Yes I think 'ui' is difficult for English and German speakers because both these languages are speaken more in the front of the mouth compared to Dutch (especially English) and they are used to articulate their long vowels a lot more distinctly (form a very distinct shape with the mouth for each vowel). In Dutch we can pronounce our vowels quite short (even the longer vowels) because they are spoken so far back in the throat that it doesn't change the vowel sound much. The 'ou' sound is ok to round a bit because of the 'o' sound in it, but the 'ui' sound is very far back in the throat while the shape of the mouth is between the 'uu' and 'ie' . I would practice the 'ie' sound first to get used to speaking far back in the throat. And then maybe say: ie - uu - ie - ui. Don't practice 'ui' and 'ou' together! Practice 'ui' and 'ie' together and 'ou' with 'oo'.
@@Lily_and_River so the lips form a tight, pointed circle for the "ui" whereas the "ou" makes a flatter, more relaxed shape? So far, I've been approximating the two sounds as follows: "ui" as the vowel sound from "out" in Canadian English, and "ou" as in the German "au" (e.g. Haut).
I totally relate with the pronounciation difficulties. In the beginning I had a hard time to properly pronounce "eu" and one time I was talking over the phone with my healthcare insurance, I wanted to say that I moved to another place, and the place is Leusden, but the lady wasn't understanding because my bad pronounciation and she thought that I moved to Leiden. But I understand why people get confused, I don't think people are being mean or anything, it's really hard sometimes to understand slight variations in sound. My mother language has some phonems that are hard to some foreigners also, and there are two words that are easly mixed, people wanting to say "bread" but they say "stick" so, image, you say to me that you went to the bakery and bought a stick, I would be "what is this nonsense you're talking to me". I think the Dutch feel the same.
There is a fourth way to say at in Dutch, it is quite archaic but is still used in some sentences. namely, "te" as in I am at home, "ik ben t(e) huis" or I am at location "Ik ben ter plekke". But you can forget this one for most purposes.
As a native Dutch speaker I would use both op de bus and in the bus…the first for public transport and the second for other busses eg a long distance tourist bus
That’s a little cheatcode for those who are halfway fluent, but please be careful not to use it in a formal/sensitive context as it may come across as insensitive or belittling.
Also found myself with a Dutch man, so trying to learn a bit of Dutch! RUclips suggested your videos to me and really like your style and love your videos!
Hi Casey, An example of a Dutch coach using Dutch idiom in English was the football/soccer coach Louis van Gaal, who said "that's a different cookie" and tried to improve himselve with "different biscuit", because we say "dat is andere koek", meaning "that's something different", or "that's a different story". Louis van Gaal made more of these statements; I can't remember other ones however at the moment.
I'm a native, so I haven't personally had the same issues, but I know of them. The verb second rule: There are still scores of learners who say: ''Morgen ik kom bij jou'' instead of ''Ik kom.'' The verb stays in the same place always, even if you add more words such as tomorrow. I was not aware of the prepositions, but I have some good ones. Er staat een man op de bus te wachten. Zegt een agent: Kom daar eens af. (Waiting on top of the bus and waiting FOR the bus is the same in Dutch) More confusion: ''Ze konden goed met elkaar opschieten tot ze op elkaar konden schieten. Het schieten schoot niet op, echter.'' (They got along well until they could get into a firefight. It was a slow shootout, however.'' Syntax: (you can break translators with things like these.) Hij kan er wat van als de kan in de kan kan. Maar als de kan niet in de kan kan, kan hij er niks van. (He accomplished quite a feat if the jug fits in the jug, but if he can't do it, not so much) Maten maten maten. (Buddies measured buddies) De wilde wilde wilde bloemen plukken. (The savage wanted to pick wild flowers)
Love the people that try to speak our language. We love to hear people try it!! 😄 It is a very hard language but it's also very unique and i think it's worth learning it. have fun and if you need some information on anything, feel free to ask me! ❤️
There’s a book about the origins of Dutch idioms. People from the province of Limburg, me too, are used to slightly variants of vowels because of the many dialects. That slight difference can give a complete other meaning to the word. We don’t have that many problems with wrongly spoken words. Dutch can be learned. I know an Egyptian, born and grew up there, who speaks Dutch fluently.
I’m showing this content to a classmate of mine, he is in the Netherlands for about 5 years now and his dutch isn’t the greatest. This will most definitely help alot so keep up the good work! Also; I like the dutch “….” interventions, super funny and VERY well spoken!! You’re dutch is amazing imo. Again, keep it up miss, peace ✌🏽
The worst is learning Flemish. I’m in Belgium and most videos are about learning Dutch and not Flemish but they are totally different. For example, uitspraken is pronunciation and spreekwoorden are idioms/sayings. It’s crazy because I’ll learn Dutch and people here don’t understand me. Also there’s like 1,000 dialects of Flemish in Belgium which makes it even harder. But you’re totally right about the fact that if you mispronounce a word even in the slightest way, they don’t understand you 😅
Hello there, I am Dutch and dyslectic. At school I had (of cause) Dutch but also France, German and English and it was hard..... I was always struggling with al these languages. In 1981 I went to Oxford for a Summer Holiday Course and stayed at a Oxford family............ I had to speak English. That was a big switch..... Unbelievable I started to think in English (and maybe dream).... And yes the 'de' and 'het' thing will always be difficult. But don't worry about is.... I tried to learn all the German cases........ Until my sister in law told me the Germans make a lot of misstakes themselves ...... (She studied German language) For many years I worked for a Dutch trading compagnie with Japan, USA, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Italy...... German or English was the language.......
Please do not worry about making mistakes. We all make some even though it is in our native tongue. The language is dynamic so, if we like the mistake (and use often) we will merge it into the Dutch language. Although the later will take some serious time.
What you said about building realtions in a language is so true. My ex partner is from Adelaide. She moved to the Netherlands in the mid Eighties and our relationship was 100% in English. After we seperated and she got a new bloke, their relationship is 100% in Dutch.
It helps a lot when you're speaking to a Dutch speaker that is also very used to listen to English and the other way around. It can come to the point of both just speaking their own native language, it makes for a very interesting evening.
Please do watch this, when you understand comedians in another language. You know you really know it and understand it. So watch Kees Torn an sing along
"Ik hou je (wel) in de gaten" Keep an eye on you. Can also mean i will take care of you "if needed a kid is insecure for example" It also can mean don't do it again, you are watched if you make a mistake (warning). But Dutch proverbs are difficult, even for the Dutch. And the swearing, difference pro region what language is used. And ask if people want to talk Dutch to you, don't start with your normal language. Tell them to correct you if there is time (and the person is willing to do so). I am dutch, i have a German friend and she is always gratefull when i correct her when we are speaking. And i always know what she meant. If you don't correct it they think it is perfect. And Dutch is a difficult language to talk, but also to write. And the subject of proverbs, don't even try it. The same as in English "it isn't my cup of tea",can have so many meanings.
lol you must be a fool, for trying to learn the dutch language, just learn german or france, dont waste your time and effort on a useless language, i will tell you as an expat mysel, even if you learn dutch they will still consider you inferior to them, i know that you will respond negative towards my advice but over 5/10 years if you somehow managed to stay here you will look back and will respond with you was right my friend
Hi Casey you should contact Paul on Highly Combustible. He and his friends are going to visit The Netherlands in the near future and I think they would really want to talk to you and learn more about the Netherlands. I know they've seen and reacted to one of your videos so maybe it would be fun to contact each other.
There is this book (can't remember the name right now) which lists all sorts of mistakes the Dutch make when speaking English.....many idiom mistakes in it..... The one I remember best is the guest speaker at some conference trying to express his gratitude for how well he and his wife were welcomed....; "I thank you from the bottom of my heart.....and also from my wife's bottom !" :-)
I remember a long time ago in a small shop in Amsterdam an englishman speaking Dutch ordered an ice-cream asking for peer. The guy asked which one? He repeated peer. Then the guy looked at me, I said peer. The englishman turned around asked me what did I say? He said it just fine. We really need to do better. I for years spoke everything in present tense in spanish as I just couldn't get through the conjugations. So for years I said yesterday I go to... The spanish were rock solid awesome and kind in their effort to understand me. I get that the huid and hout like the mooi en moe examples will throw you of for a bit. But we really need to be better in allowing people to learn the Dutch language.
The swearing with diseases is mostly a western Dutch habit. You don’t hear it in the south for example where they prefer to curse with vulgar words for genitals.
And in the west I think most people prefer the "genital" swearing as well. Diseases are more used for the more "heavy" swearing, and especially "cancer" will be considered extremely rude by most people.
I am a woman who was born in Australia (Fremantle) to Dutch parents. We immigrated to California when I was 4. I heard spoken Dutch, off and on, my whole life, although as children we always spoke back in English. As a 65 year old I recently moved to the Netherlands, just last week I went through the ceremony re-establishing my Dutch citizenship. I have been here for roughly a year and a half. I am doggedly learning Dutch grammer. I am perfectly understandable. The mistakes I make are cute and adorable coming from a five year old child, not from a woman of my age. De lit worden en voorzetsels, articles and prepositions are the bain of my existence as well.I wonder if I will ever get them right. Good luck to you, Marianne
In Gouda area - they say; óotó for auto. I remember being there as a teen, at "friends" of my parents which had children, and this toy... to learn children words. And how it pointed to the car - auto, but said óoto. And then I noticed how all people there said that, and not auto with the "au" sound. As a child I had a rrrrrolling R, like they do in Rotterdam. The G is different in sound the more south you go, even crossing into Flemish Belgium. In Limburg we "sing" according to others, because we don't sound that "harsh". In my youth I was often called a Huillander - because I didn't speak "Limburgs" dialect, and my "Dutch" was more ABN then most of my peers that did also speak Limburgs dialect - note that Kerkraads is different than Landgraafs, etc. School and Schrift - was often spoken like Sjool and Sjrift, often by boys. I remember them having to teach the boys in my early teens at school to learn them how to say it "correctly". I believe this was influenced by the Kerkraads dialect. I myself am from Heerlen or in our native way of writing and saying - Heële. No R, no N. My boyfriend is from Twente, which does it own thing with swallowing letters/sounds. I remember watching a local soap with them - to me it sounded like they were talking about a goat - Geit - but it turned out they were saying a name; Gerrit. But I can't say it like they do - if I try to do so I do say: Goat. Even here are local differences, you can hear when someone is from Maastricht; basically it is this saying: Maastricht is niet breed maar lang. Like the way they elongate sounds/words in their speech pattern. They also have more French influence in their "language" as the east side has more Germanic influences. The dialect of Kerkrade is almost similar to the dialect of Aachen (German) bordering area/city. The nieuwstraat / neustrasse - one side of the street is German territory, the other is Dutch. Always "fun" when the Netherlands played soccer against Germany.
Continuing to speak Dutch is a really good tip. Like you said: when we notice that you struggle, even just a little bit, with the language, we tend to quickly turn to English. Then if you reply to us in English, that's how the rest of the conversation will continue. But if you keep at it with Dutch, we're going to think "Oh, well, this person really wants to know our language. I'll help them a little bit" and we will continue in Dutch as well. The reason we quickly jump back to English, is because Dutch is not nearly as popular as English, German, French or Spanish, so we usually don't really bother. Because why would you even want to learn our language? We're flattered, we are happy to see people wanting to learn Dutch, but we simply just don't understand sometimes.
@@nicholasthorn1539 Well, yes. But my comment was more about people you've never met before, who you figure is a foreigner (because of their accent, for example). Then we don't really expect them to be good at our language, since it's not one a foreigner usually learns to speak. That's why we jump back to English pretty much immediately. Then if you continue in Dutch, we'll think "okay, so this person is actually serious about this" and we'll respond in Dutch as well
move to Belgium. we're also 'op de bus' :-). the vowels are actually not ill-willed. first reaction when it goes wrong is 'this doesn't make sense' not 'oh, she'll probably mean this'...
About the vowel pronunciation: 1. Its pretty international but written differently in different languages: dutch oe = german u and turkish u, and french ou/ dutch u = french u, german and turkish ü /dutch eu = german oe, ö or turkish ö or as in french “oeufs” (pronounced ös) 2. Lots of dutch speaking people are locked up in their own dutch pronunciation world. Tried to help out some dutch tourists in my mother language (dutch) a few years ago and they didnt understand and responded in english…guess they will all be speaking pretty soon . This doesnt apply for my Dutch neighbours living in the province of Zeeland next to the Belgian border.
I think the main problem with not pronouncing sounds correctly, is that when the rest is fine, the listener is listening on auto-pilot. When listening on auto-pilot, the comprehension is passive and any deviation from near-immediate recognition is going to pull the listener out of that auto-pilot listening. Compounded with the problem that IF someone isn't pronouncing a part of a word correctly, it might be difficult to know which part of the word they're not pronouncing correctly. If you say "nuis" instead of "neus", the listener might not have enough information to know if you maybe were trying to say "huis/muis/luis/etc." or maybe "neus", and if you show you're not completely proficient in the Dutch language, maybe you're confusing words with your native language, which means the entire sentence might not be structured the way a Dutch person would structure it. tl;dr Most of the time, it's not them "not making the effort". Mispronouncing a word throws all passive comprehension out the window and the listener has to re-evaluate what you were trying to say.
I think the vowels are the main thing we are listening to. So when one of them is wrong, it's really hard to understand, because it breaks the pattern recognition in our brains. It's definitely not "pretending to not understand"
" You’re probably right but it is devastating when I’m trying my best efforts, I speak slowly (and ask for the same!) and use a lot of accommodation (e.g. showing a product in the shop at the same time) and the person on the other side... they say they don’t understand. I repeat. They just immediately switch to English. I’m sorry but it makes me sad that I’m not even given a chance to speak Dutch...
"Krijg de tering" = "have consumption" (Litt.) I think what was called 'tering' in former days we call 'tuberculosis'(TBC) nowadays. A famous Dutch historic figure was Jacoba van Beijeren. She died of consumption.
Vowels in Dutch are very specific, here's a series of words that all mean something different (although they are all more or less roundish); bal, bel, bil, bol, bul, baal, buil, boel, buul. And then there's beul and bijl that are not roundish.
Even for us Afrikaans speakers with 90% vocabulary that is the same. We also use swearing(not diseases) and idioms. But the grammar is different and pronouncing the same word in a different glutteral way is nearly impossible. And sometimes the same word does not have the same meaning.
There are several books written bij 'John O'Mill', a Dutch teacher. He gathered the mistakes of his pupils and made poetry with those mistakes. The result was a kind of English that could only be understood by Dutch people. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_O%27Mill nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_O%27Mill This is one of my favourite poems: A terrible infant called Peter, sprinkled his bed with a gheeter his father got woost took hold of a knoost and gave him a pack on his meeter.
Thank you very much Casey. Thanks to you, I finally begin to understand my own language. And yes, the Dutch languge is more difficult to learn for an English speaking person than vice versa. That is NOT because we are more intelligent but because it is a very difficult language to learn like Russian to us. Take 2 Dutch words like 'Bever' and 'Bevel'. It is written almost the same but you pronounce it completely different. It also has a different meaning. Now translate this: Wie weet waar Willem Wouter woont Willem Wouter woont wijt weg. Wie weet waar Willem Wouter werkt Willem Wouter werkt wijt weg. Wie weet wat Willem Wouter wast. Willem Wouter wast wollen wanten. OK, succes with that😁. And keep in mind: Ik hou je in de gaten!!!!
Dutch is much worse than English at having similar sounding words but we do have a way of making a similar hard-to-read sentence: "English can be weird. It can be understood through tough thorough thought, though."
Hmm, is there a italki course for learning Icelandic as well? That’s where you realise that learning English and Dutch are really a walk in the park. Still, so endlessly fascinating…. Oh, I moved to the northern part of Groningen were a local started speaking Uithuizens to me (an old man). It took me 6 months to finally make sense of what he was on about… just a dialect.. sigh..
The litteral translation of Dutch idioms to English is called "Steenkolen Engels" (Stonecoal English) There are lots of videos and internet pages about it, and it's quite funny when you hear it. :P
as a belgian, flemish speaker and i go to the netherlands. I get the same 'weird looks' and non-understanding. Sometimes people even start speaking english to me. so don't feel bad, they do this to everyone who sounds a bit different :D Also, the disease-swearing is typically Dutch for the Netherlands, we don't do that; it sounds very weird to us as well.
I am Dutch but my wife is American. We live in the US. We go regularly to The Netherlands. My formal education in The Netherlands was limited and subsequently I learned English by listening. People would often explain a grammar rule and I often had to learn the grammar first before I could apply the grammar rule. My wife's formal education was more extensive and I was amazed how quickly she learned to communicate with my parents in the Netherlands. They both did not speak English. Even today after more than 50 years (in the US)I cannot explain some Dutch grammar rules, but as a native speaker I would be able to tell my wife, when she was making an educated guess, yes that's correct, no your off. I have a question. Today I can speak American English with only a slight accent, most people think I am a native speaker. I still speak Dutch without an American accent. However, I am terrible as a translator. As a translator you have to think in two languages simultaneously. My brain seems to only be able to process one language at a time. This is the reason why I didn't teach our children Dutch. Today I am teaching my grandchildren weekly Dutch lessons, but there are no Dutch children living near us and I am disappointed at how slow they are progressing. Yes, they are learning, but not absorbing the language, the way I learned English. Their vocabulary is growing, but their pronunciation is horrible. Any comments? Suggestions? P.S. We listen every week to a book on Voorleeshoek.nl and we do Sesamstraat. I also prepare weekly lessons. Grandchildren are 8 and 6.
Thanks for this video Casey. It showed me that it is important which native language is the base for learning Dutch. Me being German I have had the experience that I (with just a bit of vocabulary in Dutch) was able to follow usual conversations and then all of a sudden (with no warning ;-) ) I was lost. I guess with beginners it highly depends on the topic of talk whether one can grasp a lot or nothing at all from a conversation.
Many of our saying are based apon our history as a seafaring nation. For example.... "Het loopt de spuigaten uit" (It becomes too terrible) or "drie keer is scheepsrecht" (3 strikes, out). Prepositions..... Yeah, ya gotta love ' um, right ?! "De" and "het". In the past there were three so it has become 33,3% easier 8-D Regarding to vowels.... Usually we can make up out of the context of the conversation what you mean. When it is a trusty person he / she might kindly help you with the pronunciation. If you see someone frown, just ask about what you said wrong. Everybody will at least try to help you. Yeah, I guess every country has it' s own favorite subject when it comes to swearwords and they are usually the first words you will learn before anything else. I can swear like a king in Polish but since the Polish have 17 different versions of the word 2 (two) I gave up on all the rest B-) Usually words are not the problem. Grammar and pronunciation are the big issues. Try Russian or Ukrainian. You will come back running to Dutch in no-time :-) The very best way to learn a language is to go to surround yourself with the language. Radio, books, people, whatever but dive in deep until you drown and learn to swim. Ones you know how to keep breathing you are on your way...... (to my experience) Normally in Dutch, sounds of letters are quite different from one another. In other languages that may be different. These sounds are so alike that as a foreigner you cant hear the difference but a native speaker might "kill" you for it and STILL you wont hear the difference and have no idea where you go wrong. So according to me (Native Dutch speaker) Dutch is easy 8-P 8-D
Een leuk verschil tussen Nederlands en Engels is met ‘paardenbloem’ en ‘dandelion’. ‘Paardenbloem’ is letterlijk vertaald ‘horseflower’, maar in de ‘dandelion’ zit een leeuw..! :-D
It is very true Dutch is a hard language because we have the most sounds and vocals in a language. We as Dutch have different vocal chords and that’s why it is hard for Chinese or English speakers to speak Dutch. Of course with enough training you definitely can be good but it will always be harder than us. Also this is why we as Dutch are also the best at learning another language quicker because we our vocal chords are designed better for all the vocals. But it is also harder for us to change accents because of our vocal chords because we intend to use our whole spectrum but the other language doesn’t have that whole spectrum of vocals.
To me the weirdest thing is how you can build strings of infinitives if you use "willen" and "moeten": Ik had hem wel eens willen zien lachen. Hij had hier moeten willen zijn. Je had ons moeten zien lopen.
We Dutch and Flemish don't know our own language too well. We mix adverbs and prepositions ("gaandeweg de dag", "onderaan de streep"), we assume similar words to mean the same in Dutch and English ("format" to mean "formaat"), we are unfamiliar with concepts like "subjonctive" (assessing "het gaat je goed" when we mean to wish "het ga je goed"), we have trouble assessing the function of a word in a sentence. This last observation has had me create a sentence about cycling in the hills: "De hoogst gemeten snelheid is vaak de laagste gemeten snelheid, de hoogste gemeten snelheid is vaak de laagst gemeten snelheid". You'll never view "best getest" as assuring...
Another concept: cases (in the linguistic meaning). It is basically obsolete, but it lives on in geographic names ('s-Gravenhage and Den Haag, you'd used to live "aan Den Helder" or "aan den Krommen ie"). Instead, we tried word order to express motion (where English would suffix "to" to the preposition). That is "in het water gevallen". (It has failed.) Case(!) in point, as the proper expression would have been "het water in gevallen" ("fallen inTO the water") - how could something or someone fall (rather than sink) while being in the water? My knowledge of language doesn't match my interest in language, so I'll fail in describing another indication of us Dutch not knowing our own language (and thus making it harder for others to learn it properly). It has to do with compositions containing "er" and a preposition that get broken up in the order of a sentence, more specifically where to cut. Unfortunately, no proper example comes to my mind just now, merely "beside the mark" ones. Like "ze zijn eruitgekomen" ("they have sorted it out"), "ze zijn eruit gekomen" ("they have come out of it") and "ze zijn er uitgekomen" ("they have hatched there", "they have sprouted there"). - Yes, that is in writing, but we may suppress the spaces in speech, too. I do hope to update with better examples!
Yeah the Dutch language is pretty easy only one page of strict rules and about 200 pages of exceptions to those rules. I must say your pronunciation of Fryslân was excellent. I speak Frysian and for a native English speaker it is not hard to learn. Frysk is closer related to English than Welsh, Scottish or Irish. You probably pick it up pretty fast.
As a Dutchy I still hate conjugating words that end with 'd' or 'dt'. At first I sucked at it in school, then I got good it at and corrected everyone around me, and now I'm of the opinion that spelling doesn't matter whatsoever (in the general sense - not only for conjugating) as long as you get the grammar right. Grammer shows you master the language and spelling is just a trivia thing to know by heart. Autocorrect will fix your spelling for you (most of the time).
I was rather defensive when I first clicked on this video. As a Dutchman, I hate the stereotype that Dutch is supposed to be one of the hardest languages in the world, which even Dutch people themselves believe, when I can think of at least 10 languages that are waaaay more difficult. However, you made some good points. As a Dutchman it also took me very long to know all the idioms. Even as a teenager I still didn't know all of them and sometimes it made me feel so stupid. But the Dutch grammar is relatively easy compared to German and Russian for example example. And I can see the frustration of 'de' and 'het', but many languages have articles. French also has 'le' and 'la'. German has 'die, der, das, dem, den' etc. Your critique is more pointed towards the learning process itself, Dutch people not being used to foreign accents, people switching back to English, which all sounded fair. It was interesting to hear.
The thing about the swearing really makes me feel embarrassed to talk about cancer in a normal context in Dutch. Now, I’ve been living abroad for quite some time and I rarely use Dutch in daily life. When I needed to use the Dutch word for cancer to explain something to my brother, I got really shy compared to when I’d say it in English because I associate it with a swear word instead of a medical condition :/ One weird aspect as a native speaker is using the verb zitten/sitting as a way to describe being busy doing something/continuous action. Zit je te slapen? Are you sleeping? Ik zit te denken. I’m (busy) thinking about it. Hij zit niks te doen! He’s doing nothing! I always wondered how to explain it to a Dutch language learner 😆 Also the way you said Fries sounded really…Fries 😅
I feel the same way about using the word cancer when referring to the disease instead of swearing! I always feel like ''I shouldn't say this word'', almost like it's taboo!
@@jamielewisstax this is something typical for the netherlands. In flanders we never use deseases like ‘kanker’ and ‘tering’ as swearwords, so we have less inhibitions to name the desease as such.
Casey, thank you very much for your video! I'd like to add that I also face the problem that Dutch people tend to switch to English once they hear any mistake or phrase that doesn't sound natural to them. I've been living here for almost 3 years and try to speak Dutch as much as possible. I have a few real achievements like having spoken only in Dutch with my doctor or with a border officer but in general it goes really hard :) For example, recently I've had the following situation in Coolblue: I came to pick up my order and said "Goedemorgen, ik wil mijn bestelling ophalen" but after these words the girl who was welcoming clients near the entrance started using English. The same thing happened to me when I said "Goedemorgen, ik wil mijn bestelling ophalen" to a guy who was working at the pick-up point. Even if I don't make mistakes, they notice my accent and begin speaking English... At the beginning it made me really frustrated but now I kinda accepted this thing. I also feel here at home but this language difficulty still builds a distance between me and locals... Maybe I'm taking it personally.
About the "keep speaking Dutch" tip. That would quickly become the most wonderful conversation ever if the Dutch person kept speaking English and the non native speaker kept speaking Dutch. Also, would love to hear you swear in Dutch. 😉
5:30 I don't think it's pretending. Hearing ou or ui instead of eu for example can be very confusing for a Dutch speaker. You may have learned them as related sounds but I don't think that is how we perceive them at all. To me they do not sound "close" so I think natives have categorized these sounds differently than when you learn the language as a new speaker.
My boyfriend from the UK recently started learning Dutch, and the thing he struggles the most with is negation. Where in the sentence to put the negation, for example he doesn't understand why it's ''ik kook niet'' instead of ''ik niet koken'', because in English it's ''I don't cook'', so if you translate it you get the second sentence and not the first. He says it doesn't make any sense. I tried to explain it to him and give him some basic rules on how to figure it out but he says that's the hardest thing so far about the Dutch language
The weirdest thing of our language is using foreign (mainly English) words, where there are normal Dutch words that could be used. The English words pushed the Dutch words out of our language. Like lunch instead of middageten, or sneakers instead of sportschoenen, manager instead of bedrijfsleider, trainer instead of oefenmeester, sale instead of uitverkoop, Christmas instead of Kerstmis/Kerstfeest, Santa Claus instead of Sinterklaas. Especially shops are using a lot of English in their advertising. And sometimes we don’t have a good Dutch word for it and we’re to bothered to think of a Dutch one. Like stewardess or purser, while Afrikaans speakers use or used the word lugwaardin, in Dutch that would be luchtwaardin or lift, where Afrikaans uses hefbakkie, in Dutch hefbak(je). We have the same with French words like garage instead of stalling or centrifuge instead of droogzwierder (Vlaams/Flemish), portemonnee instead of beurs, trottoir instead of stoep or voetpad, boulevard instead of zeedijk (Vlaams/Flemish). Our German loan words are difficult to translate, like überhaupt, fingerspitzengefühl or sekt. Sometimes we make a new word by translating it literally from another language, like aansluittreffer (Dutch) from Anschlusstreffer (German).
"ui" and "uu" is really problematic for most foreigners. My Irish grandma would consistently say "ik moet de hoer betalen" instead of "huur" which is pretty amusing
Hello Casey, I really like your videos! Thank you for all the tips that you give. I live in Canada and was able to practice a bit of Dutch speaking when I went In Flanders for work. Now, I speak with a Belgian friend on Skype to practice and I am better with fluency (not as good as I want to be though). What helps is that I think less and less in French or English when speaking. I will check on Italki if I can find lessons that fit with my time schedule and time zone difference. Thank you and keep going your good work!
@8:00 Yes like...a "looking hole" like in a telescope or castle wall ... I keep you (aligned) in the (looking) hole , really isn't that wierd of a saying, we also have "ik hou je in het oog" (im keeping you in the eye) which is a better translation of "I keep an eye on you"
Wait untill you learn Flemish, news anchor Flemish is really the most beautiful version of the Dutch language family imho but in reality nearly no one speaks as clear as a news anchor, and going a few municipalities further it changes drastically lol.
Love Flemish Dutch and its accents however some are really thick and so far removed from Netherlandic Dutch pronunciation I find them hard to understand.
When dutchies curse with kanker (cancer) you should not see it as the actual disease but instead as something really horrible. So when it’s kankerweer it’s really horrible weather. The main deal with kanker is that it’s such a perfect rough word in it’s pronounciation why people use it.
Hey Casey. Ik bewonder je doorzettingsvermogen om deze taal te leren want het is echt niet makkelijk, zoals je uitlegt in deze video. Ik ben 75 en woon sinds 1982 in Australie dus ik ben eigenlijk een tegenpool van jou. Keep up the good work!
I have a book recommendation for you, you should look up "I always get my sin" by Maarten Rijkens. It's a book about weird things Dutch people say in English like meeting someone for the first time and saying "How do you do and how do you do your wife?" It a very funny book!
I just want to mention how grateful we Dutch should be for having someone like you calling this place your home. Love your videos and personality.
Yes
@@lhntr2second home 😅
"in de gaten hebben" is an expression from midieval times, where knights wore armor. The helmet visor had holes in it, for the knight to see. Obviously it would make it difficult to see everything, because his view would be obstructed by parts of his visor. But that which he could see, he would see it through the holes. He would "have it in the holes"
All these sayings have some origin. Because most arent remembered, they make no sense to people now, but back in the day, they would have made sense as they were a reference to somethins gespecific
Indeed, and many have their origin in sailing as well.
Makes sense to me......in de gaten houden meaning I'm keeping you within the holes in my visor where I can see you and my view is not blocked by the metal....
Volgens mij hebben de 'gaten' in die uitdrukking de betekenis van 'ogen'.
Never thought about it before she mentioned it in this video, "in de gaten houden". Thank you for your explanation, it make sense.
Maybe like "verkeerd verbonden" of "nummer draaien" which don't make sense with our modern communication systems.
I live in an older house with light "switches" that turn, not like a dimmer but to "turn" the lights on, versus flipping switches, or pushing buttons. Ways of saying things based on how we used them as they were created, as things evolve, the language changes/evolves.
Like turning the stove higher with cooking, if you cook electric it technically is not turning things higher but hotter, no gas flames to turn low or high. Or words that disappear like "de knaak" fl. 2,50, and "kwartje" fl 0,25 with the introduction of the € /euro.
Another one: op de hoogte blijven/brengen...
My favourite Dutch idiom to use in English is 'all madness on a little stick'. The English speakers usually look at me as if they see water burning, when I say this.
“Get now tits”
“ now comes the monkey out the sleeve “
“ fly up!”
dunglish ftw.
My absolute favourite is "van twee walletjes eten", more or less literally translated it becomes "to eat of two little dykes". And yes, I realize there is an "f" missing to make this truly scandalous in English, but it's close enough to raise some eyebrows.
A really weird Dutch idiom: de kat in 't donker knijpen. The literal translation is 'pinching the cat in darkness', the true meaning is 'being very scared.
But there's also:
loop naar de maan - walk to the moon
loop naar de pomp - walk to the pump (gas station)
val dood - fall dead
yes, we Dutch are a weird bunch.
@@bobosims1848 “ uit je vel springen” “ jumping out of your skin”
@@bobosims1848 Loop naar de pomp is not about gasstation, but about the old fashion waterpumps... Each village had at least one of them, where everybody obtained their water.
Don’t give up! I’ve learned Dutch in 6 years and I’m teaching Dutch as a second language now.
6 years?…
@@sjefhendrickx2257 Well I got from A1 to C1 in a year and 7 months, but then it took me 3,7 extra years to graduate as a high-school studying full-time in Dutch to get to a native speaker level.
I dislike swearing with diseases as a Dutch too. Especially everything with cancer and I am not the only one who dislikes it.
In Flemish we never use diseases as swearing words. We send them away like to the moon. "Loopt naar de maan".
Wouldn't be swearing if nobody was offended by it, swearwords need the taboo the be effective.
I hate swearing with cancer too, and also 'mongool' makes me so mad and sad. I am Dutch.
@@poetjenoetje wij kunnen nog veel leren van het Vlaams !
tammo100 swearing with diseases, is more a thing from the western part of The Netherlands (or in bigger cities). As someone who is born and raised in the province of Groningen, I know a lot of swearing words in dialect, but we don't use diseases.
Ah yes, prepositions, also known as 'closet words' (kastwoorden) in dutch to make things a little easier for me at the basisschool: you have to look at it in regards to the closet: bij de kast, naast de kast, op de kast, in de kast, achter de kast. So if you take the noun that you want to refer to, and replace it with 'kast' things might get a little easier. Unless it is not meant to be literal, for instance in the case of at school = op school. Cause school itself is a reference to the place and not building, because then it becomes: at the school building = in/bij (think about kast for this one) het schoolgebouw. It is, I think, always 'op' when it is meant non-literal. Hope this helps somewhat!
Try to figure out the correct emphasises (?) on "voorkomen":
"Het kan voorkomen dat iemand met een mooi voorkomen, wil voorkomen dat ze moet voorkomen."
(It can happen that somebody with a nice appearance wants to prevent she must appear in court.)
Enjoy.😏🙋♂️
When you speak Dutch it actually sounds very, very good!
The thing I've noticed in most languages, people can get the context from broken grammar but it's really hard when a word is pronounced differently than it's meant to be. Now Dutch isn't nearly as punishing in this as for example Cantonese but there kind of is only one way to say a word. We might contextually get it or if you speak in a different accent our mind goes 'ahh, then they will pronounce X as Y' automatically and we can understand someone who speaks generally less clean Dutch than you do. I understand 'Bibliotheek waar is die weet u?' (Library, where is, you know?) with correct pronunciation better than 'Weet u waar de bibliotheek is?' (do you know where the library is?) with poor or wonky pronunciation. I don't try to misunderstand people on purpose, it's just that I notice my brain automatically switches to sort of predictive text based on your accent, and when you are learning words you are generally learning the "accentless" ABN (Algemeen beschaafd Nederlands/General polite Dutch) version. Makes my mind expect the ABN version of words. So if you then pronounce a word in a not ABN way, my brain goes 'well I don't know that word at all'.
Well explained perhaps your onto something with the differences between grammar vs pronunciation. I know my grammar tends to be more irritating to listeners where as wrong/mumbled pronunciation is mostly when people misunderstand
youre translation civilized as polite i dont even know what youre talking bout
@@bishplis7226 ‘algemeen beschaafd nederlands’ translates better as ‘general civilised dutch’. We don’t use this term anymore because it refers to a time (not so long ago) when people who spoke a dutch or flemish dialect were seen as ‘uncivilised’ by people with a higher education.
@@paulvr2 Dit is volgens mij tegenwoordig nog steeds het geval
@@paulvr2 Exactly. In this situation, the word "beschaafd" in "Algemeen Beschaafd Nederlands" stems from "beschaving", which means "civilization"
Zaklamp - pitch-lamp - knijpkat depending on where you are in the Netherlands.
Hoie - Doei - Dag - Houdoe - etc. depending on where you are in the Netherlands.
tuut - zakje - tas - etc. depending on where you are in the Netherlands.
My favourite translated idioms are: now comes the monkey out of the sleeve, we give them a cookie of their own dough, is there something on the hand? And he who burns his butt must sit on the blisters
Ready is Case!
He smells an hour in the wind!
Those are idioms? Make that the cat wise! :)
@@illmatic7752 are you trying to take me in the little O? I am not crazy Henkie!
Seeing it through the fingers
Keeping someone on the altitude/height
Letting them smell a poopy
The quarter falls
Funny that you would begin with prepositions. As a German speaker, we probably use the same prepositions as the Dutch, I always had difficulties using the correct prepositions in English.
I am an oldie and learnt Englisg myelf from TV chatt and internet. Its not great but I can express myself. Thats how it works for me.
Dutch swearing also depends on region. In Brabant, we throw around intimate body parts a lot. To spice it up you can also add diseases or add in sexual preferences. In the city of Tilburg, half the classic slang dictionary consists of words that refer to another as mentally incapable. We can also refer to annoying people by calling them a certain forms of food, like pannekoek, koekwaus or kokosmakroon. These add a sense of humor as well. Likewise, one can call someone who bears charismatic scars of sleeping around too much "een afgelikte boterham."
Kokosmakroon. Ik lach hardop nu
Always a pleasure to watch your videos Casey! I've been learning Dutch for around 10 months now and your content has definitely helped me progress faster. Would be awesome to see you make a video speaking entirely in Dutch. Keep up the great content, looking forward to the next one!
Oh yeah 🤣😅 our daughters already speak Dutch fluently, but for us as parents it is a long road. A very long road 🤣🤣🤣
Dutch is like a videogame...
Level 1 is easy, level 2 and 3 too...
But after that you have level 22, 23, 24, 25...
And it will never stop... Dutch is not a language, Dutch is a high school study... It's comes close to work!!!! :-)
@@Yochemm exactly!
@@Yochemm and then you have the fun 3 separate languages we have in our country Low Saxon Dutch and Frisian so like trying to translate those can also be fun niet voor mij maar voor sommigen wel
I've never thought of huid and hout sounding alike. I can so understand that a Dutch person wouldn't understand you if you switch them up. My initial response would also be: hè wat? You want to buy a table made of skin??
German here. I can confirm this. To me, both - or rather each - _ui_ and _ou_ sound like _au_ . If I get to compare them side-by-side, then maybe _ou_ is a "cleaner" _au_ whereas _ui_ is an _au_ in a "(stereotypically) gay" accent...????
Interesting though, most foreigners I know struggle especially with pronouncing the "ui". But I can imagine that once you mastered that, it makes things only more complicated in some way :)
Yes I think 'ui' is difficult for English and German speakers because both these languages are speaken more in the front of the mouth compared to Dutch (especially English) and they are used to articulate their long vowels a lot more distinctly (form a very distinct shape with the mouth for each vowel). In Dutch we can pronounce our vowels quite short (even the longer vowels) because they are spoken so far back in the throat that it doesn't change the vowel sound much. The 'ou' sound is ok to round a bit because of the 'o' sound in it, but the 'ui' sound is very far back in the throat while the shape of the mouth is between the 'uu' and 'ie' . I would practice the 'ie' sound first to get used to speaking far back in the throat. And then maybe say: ie - uu - ie - ui. Don't practice 'ui' and 'ou' together! Practice 'ui' and 'ie' together and 'ou' with 'oo'.
When 2 people talking in dutch about a table and say after that huid and not hout. Okay not right spoken but if you dont understand you are stupid.
@@Lily_and_River so the lips form a tight, pointed circle for the "ui" whereas the "ou" makes a flatter, more relaxed shape?
So far, I've been approximating the two sounds as follows: "ui" as the vowel sound from "out" in Canadian English, and "ou" as in the German "au" (e.g. Haut).
I totally relate with the pronounciation difficulties. In the beginning I had a hard time to properly pronounce "eu" and one time I was talking over the phone with my healthcare insurance, I wanted to say that I moved to another place, and the place is Leusden, but the lady wasn't understanding because my bad pronounciation and she thought that I moved to Leiden.
But I understand why people get confused, I don't think people are being mean or anything, it's really hard sometimes to understand slight variations in sound. My mother language has some phonems that are hard to some foreigners also, and there are two words that are easly mixed, people wanting to say "bread" but they say "stick" so, image, you say to me that you went to the bakery and bought a stick, I would be "what is this nonsense you're talking to me". I think the Dutch feel the same.
There is a fourth way to say at in Dutch, it is quite archaic but is still used in some sentences. namely, "te" as in I am at home, "ik ben t(e) huis" or I am at location "Ik ben ter plekke". But you can forget this one for most purposes.
As a native Dutch speaker I would use both op de bus and in the bus…the first for public transport and the second for other busses eg a long distance tourist bus
Haha, ja: Ik stap op de bus, ik ga met de bus, ik zit in de bus. Different situations, different words.
One little peace of mind with de and het though, when you make words a diminutive it is always going to be het.
That’s a little cheatcode for those who are halfway fluent, but please be careful not to use it in a formal/sensitive context as it may come across as insensitive or belittling.
Also found myself with a Dutch man, so trying to learn a bit of Dutch! RUclips suggested your videos to me and really like your style and love your videos!
Hi Casey,
An example of a Dutch coach using Dutch idiom in English was the football/soccer coach Louis van Gaal, who said "that's a different cookie" and tried to improve himselve with "different biscuit", because we say "dat is andere koek", meaning "that's something different", or "that's a different story". Louis van Gaal made more of these statements; I can't remember other ones however at the moment.
I'm a native, so I haven't personally had the same issues, but I know of them. The verb second rule: There are still scores of learners who say: ''Morgen ik kom bij jou'' instead of ''Ik kom.'' The verb stays in the same place always, even if you add more words such as tomorrow.
I was not aware of the prepositions, but I have some good ones. Er staat een man op de bus te wachten. Zegt een agent: Kom daar eens af. (Waiting on top of the bus and waiting FOR the bus is the same in Dutch) More confusion: ''Ze konden goed met elkaar opschieten tot ze op elkaar konden schieten. Het schieten schoot niet op, echter.'' (They got along well until they could get into a firefight. It was a slow shootout, however.''
Syntax: (you can break translators with things like these.)
Hij kan er wat van als de kan in de kan kan. Maar als de kan niet in de kan kan, kan hij er niks van. (He accomplished quite a feat if the jug fits in the jug, but if he can't do it, not so much)
Maten maten maten. (Buddies measured buddies)
De wilde wilde wilde bloemen plukken. (The savage wanted to pick wild flowers)
Love the people that try to speak our language. We love to hear people try it!! 😄 It is a very hard language but it's also very unique and i think it's worth learning it. have fun and if you need some information on anything, feel free to ask me! ❤️
There’s a book about the origins of Dutch idioms.
People from the province of Limburg, me too, are used to slightly variants of vowels because of the many dialects. That slight difference can give a complete other meaning to the word.
We don’t have that many problems with wrongly spoken words.
Dutch can be learned. I know an Egyptian, born and grew up there, who speaks Dutch fluently.
Was he working as a tour guide at Luxor? Met one there who was indeed fluent in Dutch, amazing guy
@@sjonnieplayfull5859 no, this one works in the horeca
@@palantir135 well, then there are more who can do it 😁
I’m showing this content to a classmate of mine, he is in the Netherlands for about 5 years now and his dutch isn’t the greatest. This will most definitely help alot so keep up the good work! Also; I like the dutch “….” interventions, super funny and VERY well spoken!! You’re dutch is amazing imo. Again, keep it up miss, peace ✌🏽
The worst is learning Flemish. I’m in Belgium and most videos are about learning Dutch and not Flemish but they are totally different. For example, uitspraken is pronunciation and spreekwoorden are idioms/sayings. It’s crazy because I’ll learn Dutch and people here don’t understand me. Also there’s like 1,000 dialects of Flemish in Belgium which makes it even harder. But you’re totally right about the fact that if you mispronounce a word even in the slightest way, they don’t understand you 😅
Dutch Americano (RUclips)nailed speaking dutch with Utrecht accent amazing
Hello there, I am Dutch and dyslectic.
At school I had (of cause) Dutch but also France, German and English and it was hard.....
I was always struggling with al these languages. In 1981 I went to Oxford for a Summer Holiday Course and stayed at a Oxford family............ I had to speak English.
That was a big switch..... Unbelievable I started to think in English (and maybe dream)....
And yes the 'de' and 'het' thing will always be difficult. But don't worry about is....
I tried to learn all the German cases........
Until my sister in law told me the Germans make a lot of misstakes themselves ...... (She studied German language)
For many years I worked for a Dutch trading compagnie with Japan, USA, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Italy......
German or English was the language.......
Zo zie je maar: dyslexie hoeft een internationale carrière niet in de weg te zitten :-D
cursewords with de Pokken and Pleuris are generally fair game. You can also combine them and tell someone dat ze de pokkepleuris kunnen krijgen
Please do not worry about making mistakes. We all make some even though it is in our native tongue. The language is dynamic so, if we like the mistake (and use often) we will merge it into the Dutch language. Although the later will take some serious time.
What you said about building realtions in a language is so true. My ex partner is from Adelaide. She moved to the Netherlands in the mid Eighties and our relationship was 100% in English. After we seperated and she got a new bloke, their relationship is 100% in Dutch.
😅ik ken dat.
It helps a lot when you're speaking to a Dutch speaker that is also very used to listen to English and the other way around. It can come to the point of both just speaking their own native language, it makes for a very interesting evening.
On the ‘ui’ and ‘ou’ difference: Voorhout is a town and voorhuid means foreskin.
Maybe you can lookup " Kees Torn ...Nederlands/Engels ".
He is a Dutch cabaretier...he brings it to an other level.
Yeah, that's an amazing piece.
Please do watch this, when you understand comedians in another language. You know you really know it and understand it.
So watch Kees Torn an sing along
"Ik hou je (wel) in de gaten" Keep an eye on you. Can also mean i will take care of you "if needed a kid is insecure for example"
It also can mean don't do it again, you are watched if you make a mistake (warning). But Dutch proverbs are difficult, even for the Dutch.
And the swearing, difference pro region what language is used.
And ask if people want to talk Dutch to you, don't start with your normal language. Tell them to correct you if there is time (and the person is willing to do so).
I am dutch, i have a German friend and she is always gratefull when i correct her when we are speaking. And i always know what she meant. If you don't correct it they think it is perfect. And Dutch is a difficult language to talk, but also to write.
And the subject of proverbs, don't even try it. The same as in English "it isn't my cup of tea",can have so many meanings.
i really took my vietnamese to a great level this year and at the end of the year im going to focus on dutch and this makes me really excited
lol you must be a fool, for trying to learn the dutch language, just learn german or france, dont waste your time and effort on a useless language, i will tell you as an expat mysel, even if you learn dutch they will still consider you inferior to them, i know that you will respond negative towards my advice but over 5/10 years if you somehow managed to stay here you will look back and will respond with you was right my friend
Hi Casey you should contact Paul on Highly Combustible. He and his friends are going to visit The Netherlands in the near future and I think they would really want to talk to you and learn more about the Netherlands. I know they've seen and reacted to one of your videos so maybe it would be fun to contact each other.
There is this book (can't remember the name right now) which lists all sorts of mistakes the Dutch make when speaking English.....many idiom mistakes in it.....
The one I remember best is the guest speaker at some conference trying to express his gratitude for how well he and his wife were welcomed....;
"I thank you from the bottom of my heart.....and also from my wife's bottom !" :-)
Do you mean 'Make that the cat wise'?
@@icroknit2895 ..Could be....not really sure tbh...
I remember a long time ago in a small shop in Amsterdam an englishman speaking Dutch ordered an ice-cream asking for peer. The guy asked which one? He repeated peer. Then the guy looked at me, I said peer. The englishman turned around asked me what did I say? He said it just fine. We really need to do better. I for years spoke everything in present tense in spanish as I just couldn't get through the conjugations. So for years I said yesterday I go to... The spanish were rock solid awesome and kind in their effort to understand me. I get that the huid and hout like the mooi en moe examples will throw you of for a bit. But we really need to be better in allowing people to learn the Dutch language.
If you can’t remember whether it’s het or de, go Flams and use the diminutive, so always het!
The swearing with diseases is mostly a western Dutch habit. You don’t hear it in the south for example where they prefer to curse with vulgar words for genitals.
It's very common in the north and east as well.
in Noord Brabant wordt er ook gewoon volop met kanker gescholden hoor.
And in the west I think most people prefer the "genital" swearing as well. Diseases are more used for the more "heavy" swearing, and especially "cancer" will be considered extremely rude by most people.
Much respect you are taking the time to learn Dutch !! Like really!
I am a woman who was born in Australia (Fremantle) to Dutch parents. We immigrated to California when I was 4. I heard spoken Dutch, off and on, my whole life, although as children we always spoke back in English. As a 65 year old I recently moved to the Netherlands, just last week I went through the ceremony re-establishing my Dutch citizenship. I have been here for roughly a year and a half. I am doggedly learning Dutch grammer. I am perfectly understandable. The mistakes I make are cute and adorable coming from a five year old child, not from a woman of my age. De lit worden en voorzetsels, articles and prepositions are the bain of my existence as well.I wonder if I will ever get them right. Good luck to you, Marianne
In Gouda area - they say; óotó for auto. I remember being there as a teen, at "friends" of my parents which had children, and this toy... to learn children words. And how it pointed to the car - auto, but said óoto. And then I noticed how all people there said that, and not auto with the "au" sound.
As a child I had a rrrrrolling R, like they do in Rotterdam. The G is different in sound the more south you go, even crossing into Flemish Belgium.
In Limburg we "sing" according to others, because we don't sound that "harsh".
In my youth I was often called a Huillander - because I didn't speak "Limburgs" dialect, and my "Dutch" was more ABN then most of my peers that did also speak Limburgs dialect - note that Kerkraads is different than Landgraafs, etc.
School and Schrift - was often spoken like Sjool and Sjrift, often by boys.
I remember them having to teach the boys in my early teens at school to learn them how to say it "correctly". I believe this was influenced by the Kerkraads dialect.
I myself am from Heerlen or in our native way of writing and saying - Heële. No R, no N.
My boyfriend is from Twente, which does it own thing with swallowing letters/sounds.
I remember watching a local soap with them - to me it sounded like they were talking about a goat - Geit - but it turned out they were saying a name; Gerrit. But I can't say it like they do - if I try to do so I do say: Goat.
Even here are local differences, you can hear when someone is from Maastricht;
basically it is this saying: Maastricht is niet breed maar lang.
Like the way they elongate sounds/words in their speech pattern.
They also have more French influence in their "language" as the east side has more Germanic influences.
The dialect of Kerkrade is almost similar to the dialect of Aachen (German) bordering area/city.
The nieuwstraat / neustrasse - one side of the street is German territory, the other is Dutch.
Always "fun" when the Netherlands played soccer against Germany.
Continuing to speak Dutch is a really good tip. Like you said: when we notice that you struggle, even just a little bit, with the language, we tend to quickly turn to English. Then if you reply to us in English, that's how the rest of the conversation will continue. But if you keep at it with Dutch, we're going to think "Oh, well, this person really wants to know our language. I'll help them a little bit" and we will continue in Dutch as well.
The reason we quickly jump back to English, is because Dutch is not nearly as popular as English, German, French or Spanish, so we usually don't really bother. Because why would you even want to learn our language? We're flattered, we are happy to see people wanting to learn Dutch, but we simply just don't understand sometimes.
But if you know that a foreigner expects to remain in the Netherlands for a least a few years, would you not expect that person to learn Dutch?
@@nicholasthorn1539 Well, yes. But my comment was more about people you've never met before, who you figure is a foreigner (because of their accent, for example). Then we don't really expect them to be good at our language, since it's not one a foreigner usually learns to speak. That's why we jump back to English pretty much immediately.
Then if you continue in Dutch, we'll think "okay, so this person is actually serious about this" and we'll respond in Dutch as well
move to Belgium. we're also 'op de bus' :-).
the vowels are actually not ill-willed. first reaction when it goes wrong is 'this doesn't make sense' not 'oh, she'll probably mean this'...
About the vowel noises. "De huur is duur" can cause some laughs. ;)
Especially the first one
...and the huur is duur is actually not very common (and maybe even incorrect) Dutch: it should be de huur is hoog...
@@PH61a I know, but that doesn't make for joke material.
About the vowel pronunciation: 1. Its pretty international but written differently in different languages: dutch oe = german u and turkish u, and french ou/ dutch u = french u, german and turkish ü /dutch eu = german oe, ö or turkish ö or as in french “oeufs” (pronounced ös)
2. Lots of dutch speaking people are locked up in their own dutch pronunciation world. Tried to help out some dutch tourists in my mother language (dutch) a few years ago and they didnt understand and responded in english…guess they will all be speaking pretty soon . This doesnt apply for my Dutch neighbours living in the province of Zeeland next to the Belgian border.
I think the main problem with not pronouncing sounds correctly, is that when the rest is fine, the listener is listening on auto-pilot. When listening on auto-pilot, the comprehension is passive and any deviation from near-immediate recognition is going to pull the listener out of that auto-pilot listening. Compounded with the problem that IF someone isn't pronouncing a part of a word correctly, it might be difficult to know which part of the word they're not pronouncing correctly. If you say "nuis" instead of "neus", the listener might not have enough information to know if you maybe were trying to say "huis/muis/luis/etc." or maybe "neus", and if you show you're not completely proficient in the Dutch language, maybe you're confusing words with your native language, which means the entire sentence might not be structured the way a Dutch person would structure it.
tl;dr Most of the time, it's not them "not making the effort". Mispronouncing a word throws all passive comprehension out the window and the listener has to re-evaluate what you were trying to say.
I think the vowels are the main thing we are listening to. So when one of them is wrong, it's really hard to understand, because it breaks the pattern recognition in our brains. It's definitely not "pretending to not understand"
"
You’re probably right but it is devastating when I’m trying my best efforts, I speak slowly (and ask for the same!) and use a lot of accommodation (e.g. showing a product in the shop at the same time) and the person on the other side... they say they don’t understand. I repeat. They just immediately switch to English. I’m sorry but it makes me sad that I’m not even given a chance to speak Dutch...
"Krijg de tering" = "have consumption" (Litt.) I think what was called 'tering' in former days we call 'tuberculosis'(TBC) nowadays. A famous Dutch historic figure was Jacoba van Beijeren. She died of consumption.
Kudos to you for at least learning it. Welkom in Nederland, geniet van ons landje.
I have wondered why the commonly-used expression "weet ik veel" means "I don't know"
Vowels in Dutch are very specific, here's a series of words that all mean something different (although they are all more or less roundish); bal, bel, bil, bol, bul, baal, buil, boel, buul. And then there's beul and bijl that are not roundish.
Even for us Afrikaans speakers with 90% vocabulary that is the same. We also use swearing(not diseases) and idioms. But the grammar is different and pronouncing the same word in a different glutteral way is nearly impossible. And sometimes the same word does not have the same meaning.
There are several books written bij 'John O'Mill', a Dutch teacher. He gathered the mistakes of his pupils and made poetry with those mistakes. The result was a kind of English that could only be understood by Dutch people.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_O%27Mill
nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_O%27Mill
This is one of my favourite poems:
A terrible infant called Peter,
sprinkled his bed with a gheeter
his father got woost
took hold of a knoost
and gave him a pack on his meeter.
Thank you very much Casey. Thanks to you, I finally begin to understand my own language.
And yes, the Dutch languge is more difficult to learn for an English speaking person than vice versa. That is NOT because we are more intelligent but because it is a very difficult language to learn like Russian to us.
Take 2 Dutch words like 'Bever' and 'Bevel'. It is written almost the same but you pronounce it completely different. It also has a different meaning.
Now translate this:
Wie weet waar Willem Wouter woont
Willem Wouter woont wijt weg.
Wie weet waar Willem Wouter werkt
Willem Wouter werkt wijt weg.
Wie weet wat Willem Wouter wast.
Willem Wouter wast wollen wanten.
OK, succes with that😁. And keep in mind: Ik hou je in de gaten!!!!
"wijd?"
Dutch is much worse than English at having similar sounding words but we do have a way of making a similar hard-to-read sentence:
"English can be weird. It can be understood through tough thorough thought, though."
@@HigherQualityUploads Yes, that is why in most cases only native speakers can understand the difference in an instant.
@@jeroenvanrooijen1086 Je hebt gelijk.
Ive honestly tried italki it really works 😭👍
Hahah I know right! I've been using italki forever 😊
Hmm, is there a italki course for learning Icelandic as well? That’s where you realise that learning English and Dutch are really a walk in the park. Still, so endlessly fascinating….
Oh, I moved to the northern part of Groningen were a local started speaking Uithuizens to me (an old man). It took me 6 months to finally make sense of what he was on about… just a dialect.. sigh..
@@erwindewit4073 I'm not too sure, I should use it I'm really interested in Icelandic!
That difference between op, bij and aan is like the difference between on, in and at in English. In Spanish we say en for all of those prepositions 😭
The litteral translation of Dutch idioms to English is called "Steenkolen Engels" (Stonecoal English)
There are lots of videos and internet pages about it, and it's quite funny when you hear it. :P
as a belgian, flemish speaker and i go to the netherlands. I get the same 'weird looks' and non-understanding. Sometimes people even start speaking english to me. so don't feel bad, they do this to everyone who sounds a bit different :D Also, the disease-swearing is typically Dutch for the Netherlands, we don't do that; it sounds very weird to us as well.
I am Dutch but my wife is American. We live in the US. We go regularly to The Netherlands. My formal education in The Netherlands was limited and subsequently I learned English by listening. People would often explain a grammar rule and I often had to learn the grammar first before I could apply the grammar rule. My wife's formal education was more extensive and I was amazed how quickly she learned to communicate with my parents in the Netherlands. They both did not speak English. Even today after more than 50 years (in the US)I cannot explain some Dutch grammar rules, but as a native speaker I would be able to tell my wife, when she was making an educated guess, yes that's correct, no your off. I have a question. Today I can speak American English with only a slight accent, most people think I am a native speaker. I still speak Dutch without an American accent. However, I am terrible as a translator. As a translator you have to think in two languages simultaneously. My brain seems to only be able to process one language at a time. This is the reason why I didn't teach our children Dutch. Today I am teaching my grandchildren weekly Dutch lessons, but there are no Dutch children living near us and I am disappointed at how slow they are progressing. Yes, they are learning, but not absorbing the language, the way I learned English. Their vocabulary is growing, but their pronunciation is horrible. Any comments? Suggestions?
P.S. We listen every week to a book on Voorleeshoek.nl and we do Sesamstraat. I also prepare weekly lessons. Grandchildren are 8 and 6.
Awaiting your first vid in Dutch!
in de gaten houden; holes from suits of armor in middle ages. later gaten became a synonym for eyes, but that washed out over time.
Haha saying Friesland and fries like a real fries hilarious 😆 . I think it’s amazing your doing your best at learning the Dutch language.
Thanks for this video Casey. It showed me that it is important which native language is the base for learning Dutch. Me being German I have had the experience that I (with just a bit of vocabulary in Dutch) was able to follow usual conversations and then all of a sudden (with no warning ;-) ) I was lost. I guess with beginners it highly depends on the topic of talk whether one can grasp a lot or nothing at all from a conversation.
Many of our saying are based apon our history as a seafaring nation. For example.... "Het loopt de spuigaten uit" (It becomes too terrible) or "drie keer is scheepsrecht" (3 strikes, out).
Prepositions..... Yeah, ya gotta love ' um, right ?!
"De" and "het". In the past there were three so it has become 33,3% easier 8-D
Regarding to vowels.... Usually we can make up out of the context of the conversation what you mean. When it is a trusty person he / she might kindly help you with the pronunciation.
If you see someone frown, just ask about what you said wrong. Everybody will at least try to help you.
Yeah, I guess every country has it' s own favorite subject when it comes to swearwords and they are usually the first words you will learn before anything else.
I can swear like a king in Polish but since the Polish have 17 different versions of the word 2 (two) I gave up on all the rest B-)
Usually words are not the problem. Grammar and pronunciation are the big issues. Try Russian or Ukrainian. You will come back running to Dutch in no-time :-)
The very best way to learn a language is to go to surround yourself with the language. Radio, books, people, whatever but dive in deep until you drown and learn to swim. Ones you know how to keep breathing you are on your way...... (to my experience)
Normally in Dutch, sounds of letters are quite different from one another. In other languages that may be different. These sounds are so alike that as a foreigner you cant hear the difference but a native speaker might "kill" you for it and STILL you wont hear the difference and have no idea where you go wrong.
So according to me (Native Dutch speaker) Dutch is easy 8-P 8-D
Een leuk verschil tussen Nederlands en Engels is met ‘paardenbloem’ en ‘dandelion’. ‘Paardenbloem’ is letterlijk vertaald ‘horseflower’, maar in de ‘dandelion’ zit een leeuw..! :-D
It is very true Dutch is a hard language because we have the most sounds and vocals in a language. We as Dutch have different vocal chords and that’s why it is hard for Chinese or English speakers to speak Dutch. Of course with enough training you definitely can be good but it will always be harder than us. Also this is why we as Dutch are also the best at learning another language quicker because we our vocal chords are designed better for all the vocals. But it is also harder for us to change accents because of our vocal chords because we intend to use our whole spectrum but the other language doesn’t have that whole spectrum of vocals.
I love to use English saying’s in Dutch like “poep gebeurd” “als poep de ventilator raakt” but also instead of graag gedaan je bent welkom.
To me the weirdest thing is how you can build strings of infinitives if you use "willen" and "moeten": Ik had hem wel eens willen zien lachen. Hij had hier moeten willen zijn. Je had ons moeten zien lopen.
We Dutch and Flemish don't know our own language too well. We mix adverbs and prepositions ("gaandeweg de dag", "onderaan de streep"), we assume similar words to mean the same in Dutch and English ("format" to mean "formaat"), we are unfamiliar with concepts like "subjonctive" (assessing "het gaat je goed" when we mean to wish "het ga je goed"), we have trouble assessing the function of a word in a sentence. This last observation has had me create a sentence about cycling in the hills: "De hoogst gemeten snelheid is vaak de laagste gemeten snelheid, de hoogste gemeten snelheid is vaak de laagst gemeten snelheid". You'll never view "best getest" as assuring...
Another concept: cases (in the linguistic meaning). It is basically obsolete, but it lives on in geographic names ('s-Gravenhage and Den Haag, you'd used to live "aan Den Helder" or "aan den Krommen ie"). Instead, we tried word order to express motion (where English would suffix "to" to the preposition). That is "in het water gevallen". (It has failed.) Case(!) in point, as the proper expression would have been "het water in gevallen" ("fallen inTO the water") - how could something or someone fall (rather than sink) while being in the water?
My knowledge of language doesn't match my interest in language, so I'll fail in describing another indication of us Dutch not knowing our own language (and thus making it harder for others to learn it properly). It has to do with compositions containing "er" and a preposition that get broken up in the order of a sentence, more specifically where to cut. Unfortunately, no proper example comes to my mind just now, merely "beside the mark" ones. Like "ze zijn eruitgekomen" ("they have sorted it out"), "ze zijn eruit gekomen" ("they have come out of it") and "ze zijn er uitgekomen" ("they have hatched there", "they have sprouted there"). - Yes, that is in writing, but we may suppress the spaces in speech, too.
I do hope to update with better examples!
Yeah the Dutch language is pretty easy only one page of strict rules and about 200 pages of exceptions to those rules.
I must say your pronunciation of Fryslân was excellent. I speak Frysian and for a native English speaker it is not hard to learn. Frysk is closer related to English than Welsh, Scottish or Irish. You probably pick it up pretty fast.
Learning Dutch is very easy... you just have to get born here ;)
As a Dutchy I still hate conjugating words that end with 'd' or 'dt'. At first I sucked at it in school, then I got good it at and corrected everyone around me, and now I'm of the opinion that spelling doesn't matter whatsoever (in the general sense - not only for conjugating) as long as you get the grammar right. Grammer shows you master the language and spelling is just a trivia thing to know by heart. Autocorrect will fix your spelling for you (most of the time).
Let me guess, the soccer trainer you talking about is Louis van Gaal
Je hoeft niet te gokken, aangezien er een foto van van Gaal op popt in de video.
I was rather defensive when I first clicked on this video. As a Dutchman, I hate the stereotype that Dutch is supposed to be one of the hardest languages in the world, which even Dutch people themselves believe, when I can think of at least 10 languages that are waaaay more difficult. However, you made some good points. As a Dutchman it also took me very long to know all the idioms. Even as a teenager I still didn't know all of them and sometimes it made me feel so stupid. But the Dutch grammar is relatively easy compared to German and Russian for example example. And I can see the frustration of 'de' and 'het', but many languages have articles. French also has 'le' and 'la'. German has 'die, der, das, dem, den' etc. Your critique is more pointed towards the learning process itself, Dutch people not being used to foreign accents, people switching back to English, which all sounded fair. It was interesting to hear.
The thing about the swearing really makes me feel embarrassed to talk about cancer in a normal context in Dutch. Now, I’ve been living abroad for quite some time and I rarely use Dutch in daily life. When I needed to use the Dutch word for cancer to explain something to my brother, I got really shy compared to when I’d say it in English because I associate it with a swear word instead of a medical condition :/
One weird aspect as a native speaker is using the verb zitten/sitting as a way to describe being busy doing something/continuous action. Zit je te slapen? Are you sleeping? Ik zit te denken. I’m (busy) thinking about it. Hij zit niks te doen! He’s doing nothing! I always wondered how to explain it to a Dutch language learner 😆
Also the way you said Fries sounded really…Fries 😅
I feel the same way about using the word cancer when referring to the disease instead of swearing! I always feel like ''I shouldn't say this word'', almost like it's taboo!
Would it perhaps be less offensive to use a more clinical term? Say, "carcinoom" (carcinoma) instead of "kanker" (cancer)? Just curious.
@@jamielewisstax this is something typical for the netherlands. In flanders we never use deseases like ‘kanker’ and ‘tering’ as swearwords, so we have less inhibitions to name the desease as such.
@@ewmlloyd The thing is that the clinical term is unknown to the public. I had no idea what you meant till I saw it meant cancer .-.
No, it is not a normal context in Dutch. It is horrible, sadly a lot of people living in The Netherlands do this, but it is very wrong.
Casey, thank you very much for your video! I'd like to add that I also face the problem that Dutch people tend to switch to English once they hear any mistake or phrase that doesn't sound natural to them. I've been living here for almost 3 years and try to speak Dutch as much as possible. I have a few real achievements like having spoken only in Dutch with my doctor or with a border officer but in general it goes really hard :) For example, recently I've had the following situation in Coolblue: I came to pick up my order and said "Goedemorgen, ik wil mijn bestelling ophalen" but after these words the girl who was welcoming clients near the entrance started using English. The same thing happened to me when I said "Goedemorgen, ik wil mijn bestelling ophalen" to a guy who was working at the pick-up point. Even if I don't make mistakes, they notice my accent and begin speaking English... At the beginning it made me really frustrated but now I kinda accepted this thing. I also feel here at home but this language difficulty still builds a distance between me and locals... Maybe I'm taking it personally.
Picking up package sentence is too formal. Try "(goede) morge ik kom een pakketje ophalen" next time.
I have a really hard time imagining you shouting 'TERINGLIJER' at a tourist on a bike 🤣😅
About the "keep speaking Dutch" tip. That would quickly become the most wonderful conversation ever if the Dutch person kept speaking English and the non native speaker kept speaking Dutch. Also, would love to hear you swear in Dutch. 😉
A few years ago, I bought a train ticket in Walloon. I tried my best in French, the cashier (or whatever) in Dutch.
I've made it a habit to say 'je trekt me aan mijn been'. Not everyone understands what I mean 😞
5:30 I don't think it's pretending. Hearing ou or ui instead of eu for example can be very confusing for a Dutch speaker. You may have learned them as related sounds but I don't think that is how we perceive them at all. To me they do not sound "close" so I think natives have categorized these sounds differently than when you learn the language as a new speaker.
Look for 'Make that the Cat Wise' for more 'dunglish' (dutch-english).
My boyfriend from the UK recently started learning Dutch, and the thing he struggles the most with is negation. Where in the sentence to put the negation, for example he doesn't understand why it's ''ik kook niet'' instead of ''ik niet koken'', because in English it's ''I don't cook'', so if you translate it you get the second sentence and not the first. He says it doesn't make any sense. I tried to explain it to him and give him some basic rules on how to figure it out but he says that's the hardest thing so far about the Dutch language
Maybe I can try and make a video on this....let me have a think about how I learnt it
The weirdest thing of our language is using foreign (mainly English) words, where there are normal Dutch words that could be used. The English words pushed the Dutch words out of our language. Like lunch instead of middageten, or sneakers instead of sportschoenen, manager instead of bedrijfsleider, trainer instead of oefenmeester, sale instead of uitverkoop, Christmas instead of Kerstmis/Kerstfeest, Santa Claus instead of Sinterklaas. Especially shops are using a lot of English in their advertising. And sometimes we don’t have a good Dutch word for it and we’re to bothered to think of a Dutch one. Like stewardess or purser, while Afrikaans speakers use or used the word lugwaardin, in Dutch that would be luchtwaardin or lift, where Afrikaans uses hefbakkie, in Dutch hefbak(je). We have the same with French words like garage instead of stalling or centrifuge instead of droogzwierder (Vlaams/Flemish), portemonnee instead of beurs, trottoir instead of stoep or voetpad, boulevard instead of zeedijk (Vlaams/Flemish). Our German loan words are difficult to translate, like überhaupt, fingerspitzengefühl or sekt. Sometimes we make a new word by translating it literally from another language, like aansluittreffer (Dutch) from Anschlusstreffer (German).
"ui" and "uu" is really problematic for most foreigners. My Irish grandma would consistently say "ik moet de hoer betalen" instead of "huur" which is pretty amusing
I love the kimono on the door! And not at the deur :P
Don't worry, I have similar issues with prepositions going from Dutch to English
Right!!! prepositions are hard
Hello Casey, I really like your videos! Thank you for all the tips that you give. I live in Canada and was able to practice a bit of Dutch speaking when I went In Flanders for work. Now, I speak with a Belgian friend on Skype to practice and I am better with fluency (not as good as I want to be though). What helps is that I think less and less in French or English when speaking. I will check on Italki if I can find lessons that fit with my time schedule and time zone difference. Thank you and keep going your good work!
@8:00 Yes like...a "looking hole" like in a telescope or castle wall ... I keep you (aligned) in the (looking) hole , really isn't that wierd of a saying, we also have "ik hou je in het oog" (im keeping you in the eye) which is a better translation of "I keep an eye on you"
Wait untill you learn Flemish, news anchor Flemish is really the most beautiful version of the Dutch language family imho but in reality nearly no one speaks as clear as a news anchor, and going a few municipalities further it changes drastically lol.
Love Flemish Dutch and its accents however some are really thick and so far removed from Netherlandic Dutch pronunciation I find them hard to understand.
@@choonbox Trust me, even Flemish people who live a few provinces from eachother find it hard to understand eachother. 😂
My all time fave thing to say in Dutch is:
"Je hoeft niet aan een boom te hangen om een eikel te zijn."
So witty.
hahaha this is a goodie I like it too
Deceases as curses is regional I think.
And it's just not necessary to curse.
About language misunderstandig: A French boy says to an English girl: "je t'adore!". The English girl responds with: "why should I shut the door?" ;-)
😂😂😂 good one
When dutchies curse with kanker (cancer) you should not see it as the actual disease but instead as something really horrible. So when it’s kankerweer it’s really horrible weather.
The main deal with kanker is that it’s such a perfect rough word in it’s pronounciation why people use it.
Hey Casey. Ik bewonder je doorzettingsvermogen om deze taal te leren want het is echt niet makkelijk, zoals je uitlegt in deze video. Ik ben 75 en woon sinds 1982 in Australie dus ik ben eigenlijk een tegenpool van jou. Keep up the good work!
Goedendag mevrouw,ge doet een goede job,ik zie u graag bezig.greetings from belguim
I have a book recommendation for you, you should look up "I always get my sin" by Maarten Rijkens. It's a book about weird things Dutch people say in English like meeting someone for the first time and saying "How do you do and how do you do your wife?" It a very funny book!