Strange confessions

[Tom]

Dat was een goeie.
That was a good one.

I think it means that what she wants regarding the “dream man” is to “hook-up” with him, in a dating / relationship kind of way.

At least that is how I interpret it in this case. I think it is a figure of speech in this case like “hooking a man” (catching a man on a hook). A bit more colorful than “getting a man”. (And we all know a hook can sometimes be more painful. Lol)

Groetjes,
Tom

[Marco]

Yeah, that's the idea.

[Nanet]

Hai jongens en meisjes,

I just wanted to say I really enjoy reading your stories about Miscommunicatie as we say in Dutch Especially the last one, lettuce on the hook ! haha!! .

Also 'ik houd je op de hoogte' !! Of course I would never translate this literalyl(?).And I never thought about this before. But I know that lots of Dutch expressions or sayings we use, are hard to explain and hard to learn for non Dutch speakers, or students. Of course I recognize to trouble of finding words or meanings in your dictionary, I studied French (HBO)and suffered a lot !! In the end I didn't want to make any mistakes and almost stoped talking to people when I was doing a training in France, but that's a very stupid thing to do of course;)

Funny;
Leuk weetje;
Some Dutch guy wrote a book (few weeks ago) about Dutch politiciens who made hilarious mistakes doing presentations, interviews etc in English. In this case he talked about sayings / expressions which were translated literally.

I think the book is called, " I always get my sin" that would be; Ik krijg altijd mijn zin in Dutch, it means I always get what I want! Also a Minister (woman) said out in public; "i'm in my first period' , she ment I'm in my first ambtsperiode (I don't know what the exact translation is, check your dictionary).

Well, enough this is maybe to much for you!

Ik zal zeker terugkomen om af en toe te lezen.
wezen, pezen, sjeesen!!

doei

[EetSmakelijk]

Hallo everybody.
I had an interesting experience yesterday. This post will be mostly in English since I can't write all this in Dutch.
I sent one of my Dutch friends some sound clips of me trying, I emphasize trying, to pronounce Dutch.
I just can't make my tongue work!
Do you know what I mean? You hear thw words but you just can't say them right? It wasn't even the g I had trouble with, it was the stupid a!
Can you imagine that, not even able to say a?
Ok, Dutch people, please tell me, how was it the first time you ever spoke English? Were you so afraid that you would mess up that you couldn't even open your mouth? :laugh:
Afterwards I was so shaky I had to leave the chatroom I was in because my hands were trembling on the keyboard so much I couldn't write anything.
So yeah, I'm a bit frustrated with myself. It was actually eet smakelijk that I mispronounced, my own nickname!!!
...goes off muttering about silly a's and how hard they are to get right...
Met frustrated groetjes,

[Marco]

Hey EetSmakelijk, good to see you again!

The pronunciation of the short Dutch a is as following: pronounce it as in the English pronunciation of 'bath', with the emphasis on English.

[Marco]

And my first English encounter was with the word 'one', I thought it was very weird that you pronounced it as 'wan' but spelled it as 'one'. Silly English people!

[EetSmakelijk]

Oh yes, that's the number one rule with English, never pronounce it the way it's written!
Well, most of the time anyway, but I think there are about a million exceptions to that rule.
I love English, it has no rules and many exceptions.
All of this is joking of course, lol.
I am just trying to confuse you since I am so confused about Dutch. It must be the hardest language in Europe.
Let's argue about which language is the hardest to learn.
I know I'm right! Again I am completely joking so please don't take this post seriously.

I tried to pronounce some more words, I can actually make the gr sound, I think, lol. It's really funny that the g isn't the hardest sound for me, it's still the a, even though I hear it, my tongue never listens to me and refuses to pronounce things properly.
Ok, I have finished complaining now, back to regular scheduled programming.
Groetjes,

[iandominicp77]

I have this misunderstanding with my vriendin 2 weeks before I flew back to the Netherlands for the 3rd time(2 times with a tourist visa, and now with an MVV). We were so happy for finally finding a new huis the previous weeks. She was then busy looking for cheap furnitures op de Marktplaats to put inside our new huis. In one of our her e-mails, she mentioned that she has bought a BANK for us!!!! I was shocked !!! How could this be possible, I wonder. Then I told her: What! Which bank was it that you've bought for us? FORTIS BANK, ABN AMRO, POST BANK, RABO BANK? Then she replied my email together with an attachment from Marktplaats...... It was then did I realize that what she meant by a bank was a NICE BROWN COUCH!!!

"Bank" - bank
"Bank" - couch

Ian

[Marco]

Oh yes, that's the number one rule with English, never pronounce it the way it's written!
Well, most of the time anyway, but I think there are about a million exceptions to that rule.
I love English, it has no rules and many exceptions.
All of this is joking of course, lol.
I am just trying to confuse you since I am so confused about Dutch. It must be the hardest language in Europe.
Let's argue about which language is the hardest to learn.
I know I'm right! Again I am completely joking so please don't take this post seriously.

Lol, maybe the rule with English is that there isn't any!

[Marco]

:shock: I have this misunderstanding with my vriendin 2 weeks before I flew back to the Netherlands for the 3rd time(2 times with a tourist visa, and now with an MVV). We were so happy for finally finding a new huis the previous weeks. She was then busy looking for cheap furnitures op de Marktplaats to put inside our new huis. In one of our her e-mails, she mentioned that she has bought a BANK for us!!!! I was shocked !!! How could this be possible, I wonder. Then I told her: What! Which bank was it that you've bought for us? FORTIS BANK, ABN AMRO, POST BANK, RABO BANK? Then she replied my email together with an attachment from Marktplaats...... It was then did I realize that what she meant by a bank was a NICE BROWN COUCH!!!

"Bank" - bank
"Bank" - couch

Ian

Haha, yes, Dutch has many homonyms!

[Sue]

Two stupid things happened to me today:

I was talking to my boyfriend in Dutch, and I can't remember what he actually said, but the end bit was "...brug, ken je?" and I actually said without thinking (obviously!) - "Kenya, I thought it was in Amsterdam?" - and as soon as the words left my mouth I knew what he was saying and what a total idiot I had made of myself!

Later he was playing a racing game on the computer and he was talking about "rondjes" and I thought he said "hondjes" - I was looking for dogs on the side of the circuit! I think I need a hoorapparaat - of een nieuwe hersenen!

I am off to lie down in a darkened room.......

Sue

[EetSmakelijk]

I have many days like that where I just don't seem to get things, and yes, even in English my native tongue!!!
I understand entirely what you are saying.
Ok, so when are all the Dutch people on these forums going to confess the amusing mistakes they have made in English?
Met vriendelijke groetjes,

[Bieneke]

LOL Sue, learning a foreign language just makes you want to become very small and invisible sometimes!

When Ollie met my mother for the first time, he did not speak Dutch very well but of course he was trying to make a good impression on his girlfriend's mother. When I was smiling and my mother asked me what was so funny, I replied "Oh nothing, just a 'binnenpretje'". When you have a binnenpretje, you are amused by something that the people around you are not aware of. You are 'privately amused' (binnen = inside, pretje = fun). A bit later, Ollie was smiling too and on the inevitable question what he was smiling about, he replied "Oh nothing, just an olliepretje"). He assumed that binnenpretje was in fact a Bienepretje (Bieneke being the owner of the pretje) so his pretje should be called an Olliepretje.

And how do you like kerstbommetje (little Christmas bomb, *happy explosion *) instead of kerstboompje (little Christmas tree)?

EetSmakelijk, I will try to come up with a few of my own blunders.

I really love "I hate you all welcome", which is a clumsy translation of "Ik heet u allen welkom" (I wish you all welcome).

[EetSmakelijk]

Thanks, Bieneke. I needed that tonight.
Of course, there are also the times when learning a new language is very rewarding. The other week I asked a Dutch friend how to say best friend. She told me beste vriend, and I thought that was so cool because it is close to english.
Then later I was with her and some other Dutch friends online, and I said to them all jullie zijn mijn beste vrienden. I think they were very happy that they were my best friends and that I told them so in Dutch.
I love surprising Dutch people by learning something and then saying it out of the blue,, especially when I can change it a bit.
Met vriendelijke groetjes,

[EetSmakelijk]

I am so !
I read the tongue-twisters thread in spelling/pronunciation. I thought the one about Scheveningen was funny...
Today I repeated it to some dutch friends...
Luckily for me they didn't get offended, but man I wish I had asked for a translation of that before repeating it.
The moral of this story...always ask what something means before repeating it, especially if it gives you a weird feeling... lol

Met groetjes,