The Dutch Version of the TV Show Cops Posted by Karoly Molina on Apr 3, 2019
Have you seen the American show Cops? The show with one police chase on the highway with the song “Bad Boys” in the background. “Bad boys, bad boys, what you gonna do, what you gonna do when they come for you?” I recently discovered a Dutch TV show that (sort of) resembles the American Cops…
Big Surprises In The Dutch Provinciale Statenverkiezingen Posted by Sten on Mar 25, 2019
Last Wednesday, thousands of stemgerechtigden (voters) flocked to the hundreds of stemlokalen (polling stations) all over the country to cast their stem (vote). Or, perhaps, the plural stemmen is more apt, as the Dutch actually had two verkiezingen (elections)! One vote for the waterschapsverkiezingen (water board elections) and the other for the Provinciale Statenverkiezingen (Provincial States elections). Today, the official results will…
Curious Words in Dutch 3: IJsberen Posted by Sten on Mar 18, 2019
There are many strange words in a language. Words that are just not used much, words that are pronounced in a weird way… Just words that have something curious about them! And those are the ones we look at in this series. Today, we look at ijsberen. Previous posts in this series: Curious Words In…
Real Madrid vs. Ajax Amsterdam: 1-4 – how did they do it? Posted by Sten on Mar 9, 2019
A voetbalwedstrijd (soccer match) unlike any wedstrijd ever before. It happened last Tuesday on March 5. Ajax, a strong club in the Netherlands, but not the most prestigious in international circles, beat the world-class team of Real Madrid. And not by a little bit: 1 to 4! Wat een Wedstrijd! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GPCZqh51VHg In the Champions League, there is…
What does Brexit mean for the Netherlands? Posted by Karoly Molina on Mar 6, 2019
March is here and there is only one thing in the EU’s mind: Brexit! March 29th is the official day for the UK to leave the EU and everything in the news indicates that it will be a hard Brexit. The EU and the UK recently came up with an exit deal, but the British…
Words of Shock and Surprise in Dutch! Posted by Karoly Molina on Feb 27, 2019
English speakers tend to express shock and surprise with phrases such as Oh my God! or WOW! And while it is perfectly okay to use these in Dutch (because the trend with native Dutch speakers is to add some English words here and there), there are perfectly good words and phrases in Dutch you can…
‘s Woensdags – How does the Dutch genitive work? Posted by Sten on Feb 25, 2019
How do you say “On Wednesdays, we go shopping in Amsterdam” in Dutch? The answer may not be as straightforward as you’d think. And that is what this post is about! Genitief ‘s Woensdags winkelen we in Amsterdam. What stands out in the sentence above? Perhaps the apostrophe and lowercase s at the BEGINNING of a sentence. Woensdags…