Learning Dutch

Okay, so I missed the post for last week’s course! In actuality, it was just more fun to blog about Sinterklaas.

A few highlights from last week include the word hekkensluiter which literally means “gate closer” but translates more as the person who comes last (or brings up the rear, or lags behind). If you think about a group of people crossing through a gate, it is always the last person’s responsibility to close the gate behind them.

Another piece of grammar we learned last week was how adjectives which follow behind iets or niets (something or nothing) have an -s added to the word. But it has to come directly after iets or niets.

Er is niets leuks op televisie. There is nothing good on tv.
Ik wil iets bijzonders doen. I want to do something special.
Wil je iets lekkers bij de koffie? Misschien speculaastaart? Do you want something tasty with the coffee? Maybe speculaastaart?

Some fun phrases we learned in yesterday’s class include:

wachten tot Sint Juttemis = waiting forever. Another way to say waiting forever is wachten tot je een ons weegt, or waiting until you weigh an ounce. Impossible to do and still be alive.

Als je ergens mee zit = amusingly, Google translate says this is “if you sit on something”, but admittedly, it is not something to be translated literally. It means “if you have problems”. Type that phrase into Google and you will get a lot of self-help websites about depression and similar.

And here’s a random picture of Scheveningen to close off the blog post. Not the best quality in the world, but it will do.

Notice the tree off to the left completely covered in white lights. On the right side you have the movie theatre, Pathé, with the yellow logo on the top of the building. The north sea is behind the tall buildings in the center.

And hey, I’ve now visited Scheveningen enough (and needed to look up tram schedules) that I can spell the city name without having to look it up… cool!

This past week was the 4th of 10 lessons for the Dutch B2-C1 course at Volksuniversiteit in The Hague. One thing that stood out to me was the assigned homework. We had to construct a word web to show how you can go from one word to either synonyms or antonyms.

Like this (taken from the text book):

The original discussion came from discussing the qualities that the Dutch are known for, and being tolerant is one of them (opinions can differ, of course). Hence the Nederlands on the right (for Dutch). On the top you have three verbs which are similar to the noun, including to accept, to understand (though probably begrijp is better) and to allow. After that you have antonyms: intolerance and discrimination. On the left, underneath, you have expressions or feelings which are created when talking about tolerance (in this case: freedom, living together, and culture), and further two more adjectives: understanding and respecting.

Not the perfect representation but you get the idea! It was definitely an interesting assignment.