I could quite comfortably write reams and reams on this topic therefore I thought limiting myself wasn’t a bad idea. In this post I am going to talk about 5 English responses and 5 Dutch responses. These are genuine responses I have had from people when you tell them that you are learning Dutch.
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English Responses
- “Why?” – Standard English response to anything that is out of the ordinary. “Why do you want to do that? / What’s the point?” Well the point is that personal development is a choice and my choice is to do it via languages.
- “That’s interesting.” – This is the response from any multilingual person. I’ve noticed myself start to do it when someone says they are learning Spanish or Hindi or some other exotic sounding language. I think there is a mutual understanding of the struggles of learning a language that make for a ‘That’s really interesting’ response. Maybe you can share tips or experiences of your language learning journey.
- “What for?” – Similar to the standard response of ‘Why?’ the ‘What for?’ people always assume there is some grand end goal. They are never happy with a response along the lines of ‘just because’. The standard expected answers are work or love. Most people think you are either learning to for work or to impress a loved one. I have still not developed a good enough come back to this kind of question.
I dont understand the photo reference but who cares! One simply does not learn Dutch grammar!! - “Is that the same as German?” <Insert here a dodgy Audi advert impression> – This frustrates me. Dutch is a Germanic language BUT it isn’t German. I was a little naive at first about Dutch as there is some cross over but almost instantly when you hear the two together Dutch is much more soft and bouncy whereas I always feel that German is a harsh sounding language.
- “Say something in Dutch then.” – The response of people that don’t believe you. Its almost as if these people want to catch you out. What do you say when you get asked that? I end up going a long the super predictable lines of “Hallo Goedenmorgen, ik ben Maria, Hoe gaat het met jou?” (yes that is my standard, on the spot, Dutch sentence.)
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Dutch Responses
- “Why? Everyone here speaks English”. – This is a cop-out. Most time I get this response is because some Dutchies like the fact that not many people speak their language so they can talk about you almost to your face and you’d be completely oblivious to what was going on. This is sneaky but I must admit I like it. I cant wait to go on a package holiday and overhear a Dutch family. It will feel like they are talking in a code only we know and I can give them the node! (Or not, am I getting to carried away here?).
- “Really? It is a super hard language to learn.” – That’s no reason not to bother though surely. Similar to response no.1 just because I don’t need it doesn’t mean its acceptable not to know the basic polite gestures.
- “That is really good.” – This is from the supportive Dutchies. They acknowledge the difficulty of the language like response no.2 but they appreciate the commitment to learning something that sometimes feels most unnatural.
- Say something in Dutch then. – Similarly to the reasons I gave for the English response the Dutch do the same only this time they really do what to catch you out and correct your poor pronunciation. I had the Dutch test of ‘say Scheveningen’ which apparently is a most scientific test to check whether or not your Dutch is actually German, or something like that. This has happened to me, around the dinner table, on more that one occasion. Or the best is when they say “Say this then…” and then judge you on your delivery of an insult to someone, the best thing in those occasions for me is that 80% of the time I know I’m saying something rude so the joke is just as much on them as it is on me!
- They carry on in Dutch, at lightening pace just expecting you to therefore fully understand everything that is being said by everyone like a native. There is either that response or indeed a pop quiz on all of the hard words. Similar to – response no.4. The quiz is partly malicious in the fact that they expect you to get it wrong and embarrass you (that’s normally my response. I feel the colour rising in my cheeks and all of a sudden EVERYBODY is looking at me).
Maria Victoria Smith 