What does the Dutch mean?

HAHAHAHAHA! Why's that??

It was a nice first try.
The 'ij' was really good!! Very Happy

though "der geneuen schweerg" looks more like German.

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Especially for Doris:

Sinterklaas kapoentje
gooi wat in m'n schoentje
gooi wat in m'n laarsje
dank U Sinterklaasje!

Confused

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Rounin wrote:

Wasd op wert ijkl em der geneuen schweerg? Naw, just kidding, that was just random QWERTY.

Hehhehheh. Actually, it looks like some country Austrian German accent ... <winks>

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katya8 wrote:

Especially for Doris:

Sinterklaas kapoentje
gooi wat in m'n schoentje
gooi wat in m'n laarsje
dank U Sinterklaasje!

wow! Dat je dat nog weet! Very Happy

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Wow! How interesting. I have only a little clue of what you guys are saying. I guess Dutch is pretty close to English! It's funny to read something and understand it and yet have no clue how to respond! I'd love to learn it.

Since everyone obviously knows English, in your opinions, was it hard to go from Dutch to English, or pretty easy considering the two are "brothers"?

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Dutch to English seemed pretty easy. But you should ask Anastasia about English to Dutch - not easy, apparently! <grins>

Welcome to A2K, by the way. Cool pic. <smiles>

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Thanks.

That's interesting, though. I have to wonder how much of it has to do with the Dutch being around so many other languages and having easier access to them.
Here in the US we don't get the chance to learn a foreign language until we're in high school (I was 14). Some are lucky enough to have foreign language offered in middle school. There's a growing population of Mexicans where I live (near Chicago) so there are actually quite a few bilingual youngsters, but in most cases they aren't very fluent nor can they read or write Spanish very well.
A little off topic. I don't know how easy it is for Europeans to access foreign language education, but I've heard of many learning languages of surrounding countries for traveling purposes.

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HoneyBises wrote:

That's interesting, though. I have to wonder how much of it has to do with the Dutch being around so many other languages and having easier access to them.

Yeh, sure. I mean, from age 0 we have English-language pop songs around us that we learn to sing along with (badly), we watch TV programs that, apart from those for the youngest kids, are all subtitled rather than dubbed; with movies too, the only ones that are dubbed are the childrens movies. So the sounds sound familiar already long before we even learn to say the first words in English ourselves. Basically English, like love, is all around us (heh - and I'm just slipping that Love, Actually reference in to show what the effect of having subtitling rather than dubbing is - I wouldnt have been able to make it if there'd been dubbing instead Wink

.

HoneyBises wrote:

Here in the US we don't get the chance to learn a foreign language until we're in high school (I was 14). [..] I don't know how easy it is for Europeans to access foreign language education, but I've heard of many learning languages of surrounding countries for traveling purposes.

When I went to school we started learning English and German at 12, French a year later. Nowadays they start learning English as early as 9, I think - but French and German have been put more on the backburner.

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Learning languages at school is similar here in Germany:
- English now starts in the first class
- Latin or French at high school in 6 or 7,
- third language 7 or 8.

Dutch is taught as well - mostly in the regions closer to the border (there, instead of English, it starts in primary schools).

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Een Prinses erbij!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! jammer dat ze geen vrij geven....

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hahaha! Inderdaad! Gefeliciteerd iedereen Very Happy

is de naam al bekend eigenlijk??

And HoneyBises, I think it's a lot harder for english people to learn dutch than it is for dutch people to learn english.
I'm not sure if you can say this (cuz every language has it's easy and hard points) but I think english is a relatively easy language to learn for a lot of people. Dutch seems to be a lot harder, take for example to verbs... And you never know if it's 'de' or 'het', while in english it's always 'the'.
That's even worse in german though :S

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Walter Hinteler wrote:

Learning languages at school is similar here in Germany:
- English now starts in the first class
- Latin or French at high school in 6 or 7,
- third language 7 or 8.

Eh - at age 6 or 7, really?! Or do you mean in class 6 or 7? That doesnt mean much to anyone, I think, cause we all have different school / class systems.

(I've had to unteach myself to talk about "in second grade" and stuff, cause it always means something different to me than to, say, Anastasia or an English or Italian colleaugue, etc)

Walter Hinteler wrote:

Dutch is taught as well - mostly in the regions closer to the border (there, instead of English, it starts in primary schools).

Really? Wow.

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English has such poor correspondence between its written language and spoken language though... Do you have that same situation in Dutch?

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nimh

No, first class in primary school - that's age 6 (or 5). Some schools start with in the second glass.
(English is now obligatory here in Northrhine-Westphalia in primary schools.)

A couple of 'Gymnasiums' (high schools) teach Dutch up the 'Abitur' (diploma from German secondary schools/high schools, qualifying for university admission or matriculation).

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D1Doris wrote:

And HoneyBises, I think it's a lot harder for english people to learn dutch than it is for dutch people to learn english.
I'm not sure if you can say this (cuz every language has it's easy and hard points) but I think english is a relatively easy language to learn for a lot of people. Dutch seems to be a lot harder, take for example to verbs... And you never know if it's 'de' or 'het', while in english it's always 'the'.
That's even worse in german though :S

I always assumed English was hard to learn for a lot of people. I won't go into why I think that because I have a lot of reasons, but I haven't learned anything about standard English grammar since grammar school.

But I'd like to learn more about Dutch. What are the verbs like that makes them so hard? You don't have to go into detail because I'm sure that would take a long time. And what's the difference between "de" and "het"? Is it like masculine/feminine articles?

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HoneyBises wrote:

I always assumed English was hard to learn for a lot of people.

The difficult thing about English is that it is so damn inconsistent. German has a rigid system of grammar, English seems so much more - ad hoc. You have to kinda 'play it by the ear'. Luckily that is made a lot easier by the near-constant "contact" we have with the language, through music, TV, ads, movies, slang ... I mean, when you learn your mother language you also dont spend years learning tenses and declinations by heart, you learn it more 'organically' - thats more like how kids now learn English too, I would gather.

Walter, I'm really surprised at how early German kids start learning English! At six, huh? That must be a new thing! With people of my age (32), the Dutch still have a distinct headstart on the Germans when it comes to speaking English, but perhaps that will change in the future, then! (Though again, I really do think the dubbing thing severely hampers picking up on foreign languages).

I was really asking about French / Latin, though, you wrote, "at high school in 6 or 7", what does that mean? What age is that (cause I assume "6 or 7" refers to class/grade?).

HoneyBises wrote:

But I'd like to learn more about Dutch. What are the verbs like that makes them so hard? You don't have to go into detail because I'm sure that would take a long time. And what's the difference between "de" and "het"? Is it like masculine/feminine articles?

"De" is for both masculine and feminine nouns, "het" for neutral nouns. And there are hardly any easy ways, like what you have in French with the last "e" for feminine words, to see from the noun itself whether its neutral or other. Much of the time you just have to know. I've heard a lot of foreigners complain about that ...

Basically, the problem with Dutch for foreign learners is like with English - too little system, too much flexibility has made it a very "living" language but hard to avoid mistakes in.

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The thing about ad hoc languaging is that - it seems to me - there is a bit of forgiveness in most if not all conversations.

Italian has a number of words that you just have to Know too, re pronunciation, but people are fairly forgiving, or maybe they just have given up.

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Quote:

"De" is for both masculine and feminine nouns, "het" for neutral nouns. And there are hardly any easy ways, like what you have in French with the last "e" for feminine words, to see from the noun itself whether its neutral or other. Much of the time you just have to know. I've heard a lot of foreigners complain about that ...

Ah. French is somewhat like that. Many of the nouns you just have to know which ones they are. Some are obviously feminine, but many of them are questionable. In my first year of French I had a lot of trouble with that, but it's really a matter of hearing it enough so that when you say the incorrect article you can almost hear a gameshow buzzer going off in your head. But you are right -- romance languages usually have some indicator.

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nimh

I started with English in the 5th class (about 9 - 10 years old), two years later Latin, next year French.

Besides that we really start with English now earlier, this is the same today - only: you can nowadays change the languages, choose even more as thid, fourth ... (Might well be that could be done at my time -in the 60's- as well. But I attended a rather small school [nowadays one of the greatest].)

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Rounin wrote:

English has such poor correspondence between its written language and spoken language though... Do you have that same situation in Dutch?

Yes we do. The difference between the spoken and the written language also depends on where you live. Holland is a very small country but there are a lot of dialects and some of them are REALLY hard to understand.
Then I'm only talking about the pronunciation.
I guess the grammar is kind of the same in spoken and written dutch, but there are some things you don't write and some things you do write, but you never say. I guess it's like that in most languages.
The difference between written and spoken dutch is a LOT smaller than the difference between written and spoken french anyway.

HoneyBises wrote:

But I'd like to learn more about Dutch. What are the verbs like that makes them so hard? You don't have to go into detail because I'm sure that would take a long time.

The difficult thing about dutch verbs is that... the verbs you use the most, are all irregular. And the conjugation is a lot harder than that of english verbs. (For germans this is no problem at all Wink

)
Though I noticed the verb system is slooowly becoming more regular.
For example, the past tense of 'waaien' (to blow(the wind)) used to be 'woei', but only old people say that nowadays. Most people say 'waaide' which is regular.
The same goes for 'durven' (to dare), it used to be 'dorst' but now it's 'durfde'.
'Scheren' (to shave) used to be 'schoor' but more and more people say 'scheerde'.
What's the like in German?

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What does the Dutch mean?

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