passatdoc
Well-known member
well, then, you can teach Albert Heijn how to spell
When I lived in Nijmegen as an exchange student, the box of Albert Heijn vlokken said "melkchocolade vlokken". They didn't run it into a single word, maybe they thought only Germans do that!!
When I lived there (three months, including one month at school---Canisius College, yes, the Jesuits!!), I had only studied Spanish at that point and had no experience with Germanic languages (except English, which technically speaking IS a Germanic language). So grammar didn't make sense to me.
A year later, however, I began the first of three years of German study at university. Very quickly Dutch grammar made sense, but when I tried to speak Hollands, it came out in, um, German. In addition, my surname is German. Um, NOT the best first impression to make in Holland!!! I very quickly learned that it may be "safer" to use English than German with the older generation.
One odd thing I have always noticed about Holland: the people there are among Europe's best linguists, with most people who completed secondary school in Holland (as opposed to immigrants who didn't go through the Dutch system) facile in Dutch, English, German, and French. OK, sometimes the German is passive "I learned it from watching tv" German, but they can get by.
But there is one language skill they tend to lack: the ability to understand their own language when a foreigner mispronounces the language. Because they meet so few foreign visitors who even try to speak Dutch, they don't have a lot of experience listening/deciphering what someone is trying to say, it's easier for them to switch to English.
In Germany, in contrast, while it's far less common to find someone who speaks four languages, they are MUCH better at listening to someone speak German who doesn't speak their dialect, or at understanding a foreign visitor whose pronunciation is less than optimal.
This may be because of Germany being larger, with numerous dialects, and the fact that most can speak/understand Hochdeutsch as well as their own dialect. Also, they may have been exposed to more foreign visitors with some German ability, versus. virtually no one who comes to Holland speaking Nederlands. Although no one has trouble with my German pronunciation or grammar, I've heard other visitors whose German isn't very good, but Germans always seem to know what you mean.
The younger generation in Germany is pretty comfortable in English, due to tv movies internet etc. but the middle aged and older generations are not as comfortable in English, compared to same-age peers in Holland. So perhaps out of necessity (and not being able to speak English well), the older generations in Germany do much better with less-than-perfect German than people in Holland who are exposed to less-than-perfect Dutch. The fact that German is more phonetic and has few sounds not found in English may have something to do with it, too.
PS: re: Bernhard's "second family". As you might guess, this affair was sort of censored in the Dutch press at first. I e-mailed my host family about it but they didn't believe me until De Telegraaf finally broke the news. I suppose they admired Juliana even more at that point, knowing what she had to put up with (then again, he had to put up with her crazy faith healer Greet Hofmans). However, we all agree that Princess Margriet = Princess Perfect. No Mabel-gate or Margarita-gate scandals. She may not assist the Dutch hat industry in the same way that Trixi does, but we love her anyway.
I only wish there had been webcams back in the 1960s to record Juliana's reaction when she learned that Irene had become a Catholic from DE TELEGRAAF (a photo of her kneeling during mass in Spain was on the front page...). Not THAT would have been worth watching. I thought I know all the Dutch four-letter words already, but perhaps I would have learned a few more expletives from Juliana.
Holland....the only country in the world where the Catholics are the LIBERALS.
When I lived in Nijmegen as an exchange student, the box of Albert Heijn vlokken said "melkchocolade vlokken". They didn't run it into a single word, maybe they thought only Germans do that!!
When I lived there (three months, including one month at school---Canisius College, yes, the Jesuits!!), I had only studied Spanish at that point and had no experience with Germanic languages (except English, which technically speaking IS a Germanic language). So grammar didn't make sense to me.
A year later, however, I began the first of three years of German study at university. Very quickly Dutch grammar made sense, but when I tried to speak Hollands, it came out in, um, German. In addition, my surname is German. Um, NOT the best first impression to make in Holland!!! I very quickly learned that it may be "safer" to use English than German with the older generation.
One odd thing I have always noticed about Holland: the people there are among Europe's best linguists, with most people who completed secondary school in Holland (as opposed to immigrants who didn't go through the Dutch system) facile in Dutch, English, German, and French. OK, sometimes the German is passive "I learned it from watching tv" German, but they can get by.
But there is one language skill they tend to lack: the ability to understand their own language when a foreigner mispronounces the language. Because they meet so few foreign visitors who even try to speak Dutch, they don't have a lot of experience listening/deciphering what someone is trying to say, it's easier for them to switch to English.
In Germany, in contrast, while it's far less common to find someone who speaks four languages, they are MUCH better at listening to someone speak German who doesn't speak their dialect, or at understanding a foreign visitor whose pronunciation is less than optimal.
This may be because of Germany being larger, with numerous dialects, and the fact that most can speak/understand Hochdeutsch as well as their own dialect. Also, they may have been exposed to more foreign visitors with some German ability, versus. virtually no one who comes to Holland speaking Nederlands. Although no one has trouble with my German pronunciation or grammar, I've heard other visitors whose German isn't very good, but Germans always seem to know what you mean.
The younger generation in Germany is pretty comfortable in English, due to tv movies internet etc. but the middle aged and older generations are not as comfortable in English, compared to same-age peers in Holland. So perhaps out of necessity (and not being able to speak English well), the older generations in Germany do much better with less-than-perfect German than people in Holland who are exposed to less-than-perfect Dutch. The fact that German is more phonetic and has few sounds not found in English may have something to do with it, too.
PS: re: Bernhard's "second family". As you might guess, this affair was sort of censored in the Dutch press at first. I e-mailed my host family about it but they didn't believe me until De Telegraaf finally broke the news. I suppose they admired Juliana even more at that point, knowing what she had to put up with (then again, he had to put up with her crazy faith healer Greet Hofmans). However, we all agree that Princess Margriet = Princess Perfect. No Mabel-gate or Margarita-gate scandals. She may not assist the Dutch hat industry in the same way that Trixi does, but we love her anyway.
I only wish there had been webcams back in the 1960s to record Juliana's reaction when she learned that Irene had become a Catholic from DE TELEGRAAF (a photo of her kneeling during mass in Spain was on the front page...). Not THAT would have been worth watching. I thought I know all the Dutch four-letter words already, but perhaps I would have learned a few more expletives from Juliana.
Holland....the only country in the world where the Catholics are the LIBERALS.
