Category: Dutch (Nederlands)

Snails and corner shops

By Simon

I have been learning Dutch for just over a week now and am enjoying it and finding it interesting. I can guess the meanings of many of the words I encounter as they are similar to German and/or English, but some are completely different. For example, I just learnt that shop is (de) winkel /ˈʋɪŋkəl/, and that shopping is (het) winkelen, which have no similarities to shop or shopping in English, or to their equivalents in German – Geschäft/Laden and einkaufen.

According to Wiktionary, winkel meant corner in Middle Dutch and Old Dutch, and comes from the Proto-Germanic word *winkilaz (corner, nook), from the Proto-Indo-European *weng- (to bend, bow, arch, curve) [source].

Winkel is apparently cognate with German Winkel (corner), and the Old English wincel (nook, corner), which is found in the word periwinkle (a type of sea snail). The use of winkel for shop is apparently derived from the meaning “corner in which merchandise is stalled”.

Related words include:

  • ijzerwinkel, ijzerwarenwinkel = hardware store (“iron (wares) shop”)
  • platenwinkel = record shop/store
  • webwinkel = online shop/store
  • winkelen = to shop; to go shopping – also boodschappen; het boodschappen doen
  • winkelcentrum = shopping centre / mall
  • winkelwagen = shopping trolley / cart
  • winkeltas = shopping bag
  • winkelassistent = shop assistant, personal shopper, sales clerk
  • winkelier = shopkeeper, storekeeper, retailer

– winkelhaak = try square; carpenter’s square

Nederlands

By Simon

I’ve decided to learn Dutch this month and want to see how much I can learn in a month. I haven’t learnt any Dutch before, but can understand it a bit as I speak English and German. I’m using online resources, including courses on Babbel and any others I can find. I will also be listening to Dutch radio and maybe watching some Dutch TV, and maybe learning some Dutch songs. A friend is also learning Dutch this month, so I thought I’d give it a try, and we have a Dutch friend we can practise with.

Any suggestions of online Dutch resources would be appreciated.

Thumbs and inches

By Simon

I discovered today that the French word for thumb, pouce, also means inch, which makes sense as the length of the inch is apparently based on the width of a man’s thumb.

Related expressions include:

– se tourner les pouces, se rouler les pouces = to twiddle one’s thumbs
– manger sur le pouce = to grab a quick bite to eat (“to eat on the thumb”)
– déjeuner/dîner sur le pouce = to have a quick lunch/dinner (“to lunch/dine on the thumb”)
– donner un coup de pouce à quelqu’un = to help someone out (“to give a blow of the thumb to sb”)
– mettre les pouces = to throw in the towel; to give in; to give up (“to put the thumbs”)

The word inch comes from the Latin word uncia (a twelfth; ouce; inch), as does the word ounce, which is a twelfth of a troy pound [source]

The word for inch is the same as the word for thumb in Italian (pollice), Dutch and Afrikaans (duim), and Czech and Slovak (palec). How about in other languages?

Partners, other halves and significant others

By Simon

There was some discussion last night at the polyglot conversation group about the words boyfriend and girlfriend and their equivalents in other languages, particularly in Dutch. In English the words boyfriend and girlfriend seem to indicate someone who is relatively young, so don’t seem quite appropriate for use by more mature couples when referring to each other. There are many alternatives, including partner, life partner, other half, better half, companion, gentleman/lady friend, soul mate, significant other, sweetheart, lover, paramour and so on. Do you use or do you know others?

In Dutch it’s much easier – a special male friend is referred to as mijn vriend (my (male) friend), and a special female friend is referred to as mijn vriendin (my (female) friend). A non-intimate friend is simply een vriend(in) (a friend) or een vriend(in) van mij (a friend of mine).

In Welsh it’s straightforward as well – cariad covers both boyfriend and girlfriend, and cyfaill or ffrind is used for ordinary friends.

The combed giraffe sings like a saucepan

By Simon

I came across a number of interesting French idioms today in this article in The Guardian, including peigner la giraffe (combing the giraffe), which means to waste time on a pointless task, and chanter comme une casserole (to sing like a saucepan) or to sing terribly. It also mentions a Dutch idiom, broodje aap verhaal (monkey sandwich story), which refers to persistent rumours or urban legends.

English equivalents of peigner la giraffe include idling, dossing (about), doing nothing (much), killing time, and so on. Do you have any others?

How about English or other language equivalents of chanter comme une casserole or broodje aap verhaal?

Free online language course to give away

By Simon

I’ve been given free access to the online courses offered by Online Trainers to give them a try, and have one course to give away.

The languages available are English, French, Spanish, Italian, German and Dutch.

If you’re interested, just drop me an email at feedback[at]omniglot[dot]com and I’ll send you an access code that gives you three months’ free access to a course of your choice.

[addendum] This course has now been claimed. If I’m given any other free courses, I’ll let you know.

Spreek je Nederlands?

By Simon

Today’s post comes from an email sent in by James Eglinton.

I have met many non-native English speakers who speak English with no discernible non-native accent. I know Dutch people (with Irish spouses) who can pass themselves off as Irish in Ireland. I know French people who speak faultless British English, I have heard a German speaking Scottish Gaelic and I struggled to tell that he wasn’t a native speaker. I also know various non-native French speakers who have to convince French people that they really are foreigners. I know Scots who can pass themselves off as Germans in Germany. Wherever you go in the world, you meet non-native English speakers with perfect American accents …

In my own situation, I grew up with English and Gaelic, and also learned French while living in Paris. When I was living there, people would ask if I was Belgian or Swiss. My French accent wasn’t quite native enough for them to think I was French, but I spoke it well enough that they generally thought I was a native speaker from somewhere else in French-speaking Europe.

I now live in the Netherlands and have learned Dutch to fluent non-native level. Thanks to my Gaelic background, Dutch gutturals don’t pose any major problems, but although I speak Dutch all day at work, I have found trying to acquire a decent native-like accent astonishingly difficult. I have found Dutch easy to speak well, but thus far impossible to speak perfectly. I regularly ask Dutch people, “Have you ever met a foreigner who speaks such good Dutch that you didn’t know they were foreign?” The universal answer is, “No”.

I’m aware that Dutch has a couple of very tricky features (the klemtone [misplaced stress] and the system of de and het definite articles) that make acquiring native level fluency very difficult (or perhaps impossible?), but I wonder if any Omniglot readers know non-native Dutch speakers who speak faultless Dutch.

If not, why is Dutch so seemingly impossible to learn at that level? Are there sociological factors involved (i.e. very few people learn Dutch, many millions learn English/French etc, which creates a more challenging setting for Dutch learners) or is Dutch just uniquely hard to master due to some subtle grammatical nuances?

Double dutch and lost dragons

By Simon

I’ve been playing with Xtranormal today and have made a couple of new films:

Double Dutch (in Dutch and English)

Where’s my dragon? (In Mandarin and English)

When you use Mandarin the system refuses to accept some of the characters you type in, including some common ones like 谢 (thanks). I tried substituting pinyin for the problematic characters, but found that this only works in some cases. Then I came up with the idea of substituting other characters with the same sounds, and it works well. For example 谢谢 becomes 泄泄 (泄 [xiè = to leak) and 话 (huà) – language, becomes 画 (huà) – picture. It’s not ideal, but it works and I’ve learnt some new characters, or re-learnt ones I should already know.

If I can work out how to add subtitles, I might do so, but it should be possible to work out most of the non-English bits from the English bits.

I’ve also posted these films on YouTube.

Spincop

By Simon

Spider / Spincop

William Caxton introduced printing into England, and also translated a number of literary works from French, Latin and Dutch. Within his translations he used words he picked up while learning and practising his trade in Germany and Belgium, including spincop, from the Dutch spinnekop (spider), and okselle, from the Dutch oksel (armpit).

The English word spider comes via the Middle English spither and the Old English spiþra from the Proto-Germanic *spenthro, which comes from *spenwanan (to spin). Another Old English for spider was gangewifre (a weaver as he goes). In other Germanic languages the words for spider retain the link to spin: Spinne (German), spinnekop / spin (Dutch), spindel (Swedish) and שפּין (shpin) – Yiddish.

When I came across the word spincop it set me wondering whether it might be related to a Welsh word for spider, copyn (also cop, pryf cop(yn), corryn). Does anyone know the etymology of these words?

The Proto-Indo-European root word for spider is *araKsn, and the words for spider in the Romance languages come from this root: aranea (Latin), aranya (Catalan), aranha (Portuguese), araña (Spanish), ragno (Italian).

While okselle didn’t really catch on in Standard English, a related word, oxter, is used in dialects of Northern England, and in Hiberno English and Scots. This word is thought to come from the Old English ōxta, which is probably related to the Old English word axle or axis – eax. The medical term for this part of the body is axilla, which comes from Latin and is diminutive of ala (wing).

De bouche à oreille

By Simon

Last night we were discussing how to encourage more people to come to the French conversation group and we concluded that word of mouth is probably the most effective way – all the posters we put up around Bangor last Saturday have yet to bring hordes of new recruits. We also thought that the French version of word of mouth, de bouche à oreille (from mouth to ear), seems to be more logical then the English. Another way to say word of mouth in French is de vive voix (of live mouth).

Word of mouth in Chinese is 口耳相傳 (kǒu ěr xiāng chuán) or “mouth ear mutual spread” or 口口相傳 (mouth mouth mutual spread); in Dutch it’s van mond tot mond (from mouth to mouth) and it’s the same in German, von Mund zu Mund. In Japanese it’s 口コミ(kuchikomi) or “mouth com(munication)”, and in Spanish it’s boca a boca (mouth to mouth) or boca a oreja (mouth to ear).

What about in other languages?