{"id":1227,"date":"2011-03-13T22:10:27","date_gmt":"2011-03-13T22:10:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/?p=1227"},"modified":"2011-03-13T22:18:10","modified_gmt":"2011-03-13T22:18:10","slug":"paulien-corneliesse-taal-is-zeg-maar-echt-haar-ding","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/paulien-corneliesse-taal-is-zeg-maar-echt-haar-ding\/","title":{"rendered":"Paulien Cornelisse:  Taal is zeg maar echt haar ding"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/11\/2011\/03\/taaliszegmaar.jpg\"><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/11\/2011\/03\/taaliszegmaar.jpg\" aria-label=\"Taaliszegmaar 191x300\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-1228\"  alt=\"\" width=\"191\" height=\"300\" \/ src=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/11\/2011\/03\/taaliszegmaar-191x300.jpg\"><\/a>My office book club, which has only met once, at Trafalgar Caf\u00e9 in Eindhoven, where we discussed our shared literary experiences over <em>schnietzel <\/em>and beers, recently read a book that has been quite popular among Dutch readers since it came out in 2009:\u00a0 <em>Taal is zeg maar echt mijn ding<\/em>, by\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.pauliencornelisse.nl\/\">Paulien Cornelisse<\/a>.\u00a0 Cornelisse is a comedienne and performance artist; <em>Taal<\/em> is her first book, and it is full of sketch-length observations about the Dutch language \u2013 its ironies, its 20<sup>th<\/sup>-century meanderings into nonsense.\u00a0 It\u2019s a fun read, and it shouldn\u2019t be particularly difficult to get through for intermediate to advanced Dutch students \u2013 apart from some Dutch pop-cultural references that whizzed clear over my own head.<\/p>\n<p>The title is a reference to one of the many little things that Cornelisse skillfully chips at with her etymologist\u2019s pick-axe:\u00a0 in the course of normal Dutch conversation, the qualifier <em>zeg maar <\/em>is used with what is in Cornelisse\u2019s opinion alarming frequency.\u00a0 In this way, the book is also a good manual for people looking to speak truly conversational Dutch.\u00a0 Some examples:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><em>Zeg maar<\/em>.\u00a0 This expression is used to qualify something and make it sound a bit more approximate.\u00a0 In English it\u2019s a bit like the way some people litter their sentences with \u201ckind of.\u201d\n<ul>\n<li><em>Dutch<\/em>: Het is zeg maar een vis zoep.<\/li>\n<li><em>English<\/em>:\u00a0 It\u2019s sort of a fish soup.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><em>Leuk<\/em>.\u00a0 This Dutch word, which means something very broad that includes \u201cnice,\u201d \u201cfun\u201d and \u201ccute,\u201d is overused if you ask Paulien Cornelisse.\u00a0 It is, however, useful to the beginning Dutch speaker for its versatility.\n<ul>\n<li><em>Dutch<\/em>:\u00a0 Ik vond het een heel leuk avondje.<\/li>\n<li><em>English<\/em>:\u00a0 I thought it was a very nice evening.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><em>Best wel<\/em>.\u00a0 Corneliesse argues that this overused phrase allows Dutch-speakers to make statements without clarifying their real meaning.\u00a0 In short, one uses <em>best wel <\/em>in the way we might use \u201cpretty\u201d or \u201cpretty much\u201d in English.\n<ul>\n<li><em>Dutch<\/em>:\u00a0 Ik ben best wel vol.<\/li>\n<li><em>English<\/em>:\u00a0 I\u2019m pretty full.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I like Cornelisse\u2019s book, although I was surprised by how many of her observations about Dutch seemed universally applicable \u2013 or, at least, applicable to my experience with English.\u00a0 Though languages are full of untranslatable nuance, they are also held together by pillars of shared meaning \u2013 those things that all humans are obliged to express, and which do not tend to differ from place to place.<\/p>\n<p>You can watch Corneliesse talk a bit about the book <a href=\"http:\/\/humortv.vara.nl\/pa.341366.paulien-cornelisse-taal-is-zeg-maar-echt-mijn-ding.html\">here<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0 I like the interviewer\u2019s description of the book as full of <em>taal-dingetjes<\/em>.\u00a0 That one is a unique Dutch-ism, no question.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<img width=\"200\" height=\"314\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/11\/2011\/03\/taaliszegmaar.jpg\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image tmp-hide-img\" alt=\"\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" \/><p>My office book club, which has only met once, at Trafalgar Caf\u00e9 in Eindhoven, where we discussed our shared literary experiences over schnietzel and beers, recently read a book that has been quite popular among Dutch readers since it came out in 2009:\u00a0 Taal is zeg maar echt mijn ding, by\u00a0Paulien Cornelisse.\u00a0 Cornelisse is a&hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"post-item__readmore\"><a class=\"btn btn--md\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/paulien-corneliesse-taal-is-zeg-maar-echt-haar-ding\/\">Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":61,"featured_media":1228,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[3590],"tags":[65,8,27619,27617],"class_list":["post-1227","post","type-post","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dutch-language","tag-etymology","tag-language","tag-paulien-cornelisse","tag-taal-is-zeg-maar-echt-mijn-ding"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1227","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/61"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1227"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1227\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1236,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1227\/revisions\/1236"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1228"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1227"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1227"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1227"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}