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diminutives Posted by Transparent Language on Mar 15, 2009
In the Netherlands everything is small! At least that’s what you might think when you hear us using so many diminutives. Even though most diminutives in Dutch end with –je, there are still different ways to ‘make a word smaller’. Some words get extra letters besides –je. Also, most diminutives are used for nouns. Many…
Omdat and doordat, revisited Posted by Transparent Language on Mar 12, 2009
In response to a few comments and questions on my ‘Omdat and doordat’ post, I would like to shortly revisit the topic again. The reason why this topic seems so difficult, is because the topic itself is difficult, even for native Dutch people. That’s the reason why the word ‘omdat’ is also more and more…
Peter R. de Vries, misdaadverslaggever Posted by Transparent Language on Mar 9, 2009
Already a celebrity in the Netherlands, because of his crime-reporting skills, a man became world famous for ‘solving’ the Natalee Holloway case. Of course, I’m now talking about Peter R. de Vries, misdaadverslaggever (the crime reporter). For some people, he seemed to appear on tv out of the blue… a wannabe celebrity taking undercover cases…
Writing a letter in Dutch Posted by Transparent Language on Feb 20, 2009
Even in this current computer age, lot’s of letters are still written on paper… Either handwritten or printed. Professional letters, personal letters… letters all over the world still manage to find their way. So, I would like to give you a little information on what to pay attention to when writing a letter in Dutch…
Accents again Posted by Transparent Language on Feb 15, 2009
First of all, thank you readers for your comments… haha, as you noticed my English isn’t exactly flawless, but I will try to keep the mistakes at a minimum! The one big problem I seem to be having writing the blog, is to come up with potentially interesting stories… because I’m native Dutch, I find…
Omdat and doordat Posted by Transparent Language on Feb 5, 2009
In Dutch we have two words we can use in a sentence, to explain something, or give a reason. Two words that both mean ‘because’. These two words are not synonyms, they are both used in different cases. The best way to explain this, is by giving a few small examples. Okay, a really simple…
Swimming lessons Posted by Transparent Language on Jan 25, 2009
Today, a topic about ‘zwemles’ (swimming lessons) in the Netherlands and why it’s so important. The Netherlands is one of the countries with the highest percentage of people who can swim. Since years and years and years, parents bring their young children to swimming lessons so they can learn how to swim. What I can…