My Favourite Word in Dutch Posted by heather on Oct 15, 2011
Everyone has a favourite word in the foreign language that they are learning. For some people it is the first word that they learned. For others it is that one word that makes you laugh each and every time you hear it or it is the word that you struggled over and over to learn. …
Meneer Kaktus: Do you get it?? Posted by Elena on Oct 13, 2011
When I was younger, and my family moved from the Netherlands to the US, my Dutch grandmother often sent me VHS tapes of my favorite Dutch television shows so that I could watch them in New York. Those of you who were children in the Netherlands between 1986 and 1993 will remember Meneer Kaktus, a…
Get Dragged into the Action of the Netherlands Film Festival Posted by heather on Oct 4, 2011
The Netherlands Film Festival 2011, a yearly event that allows the public and the industry to come together and concentrate on Dutch cinema, has just recently come to a close. I haven’t seen the figures for 2011 yet but in 2010, 382 films were screened, 154,000 people attended and 3 million people viewed the online…
Kip, Paard, Koe – Chicken, Horse, Cow Posted by heather on Sep 24, 2011
The other day I was doing some work with Radio 538 playing in the background, when a song came on that I hadn’t heard before. The melody was pretty catchy in one of those “stuck in your head for three hours” type of ways. It didn’t help that there weren’t too many words in the…
Dutch Numbers: Becoming a Number Pro Posted by heather on Sep 7, 2011
If you are relatively new to learning the Dutch language, then one of the first things you probably want to learn is how to count. A good goal, especially as knowing the numbers really does open doors. For example, you’ll be able to understand how much something costs when the salesperson tells you the amount…
Driest Spring, Wettest Summer Posted by heather on Sep 2, 2011
It is a regular conversation point to talk about the weather and now it seems there is a very good reason to do so. According to the national weather service, the KNMI, this summer was the wettest summer in the Netherlands since 1906. If your summer BBQ was rained out, it was probably because of…
Due to heavy traffic in Amsterdam, Dutch bikers cross continents Posted by Elena on Aug 23, 2011
As we’ve all heard, the spirit of progressivism is strong in the Dutch. For over a year, since July of 2010, Joost Nootenboom and Michiel Roodenburg – Dutchmen, both, in case you couldn’t guess – have been progressing through the North and South American continental masses, on bamboo bikes. Their cause? Clean water. They began…