Dutch + English = Denglish???

Now that Frans and Rose have spent several months in Dutch schools, their Dutch is better than ever.  One of the great things about learning another language, though, is learning and using words and expressions that have no exact English translation.  The kids have started to incorporate these words into daily use (sometimes without even knowing it!)

The Dutch word, gezellig, is one such word.  Its closest translation is “cozy,” but somehow it captures togetherness, feeling welcome, and much more. When we are together as a family, in a warm dry house, on a cold wet evening, enjoying good company and good food, the kids will describe such an evening saying, That was “gezellig”!

Rose with Bauke, Han's newest grandchild, during a gezellig evening with Han's kids and their families.

There is something to learn about a language in which there seems to be only one way to describe something as beautiful, pretty, elegant etc., mooi, but many ways to describe something as ridiculous!  With the guttural g’s and the Dutch intonation, the onomatopeia of the many Dutch words used to express when something is outrageously unacceptable is perfect in Dutch.  I find myself, in a moment of frustration with a ridiculous situation or an exasperating rule I cannot change, wanting to say Dat is belachelijk! Or Dat is flauwekul!  There are others, of course, but not all are fit to print…

Belachelijk! - Ellen holding a bag of lint, taped to an angry unsigned note from a neighbor in Oom Kees' apartment building in Switzerland. Why? Ellen ran out of the shared laundry room (to throw up) before cleaning the lint from the dryer during a bout of altitude sickness.  Poor Oom Kees had to hear about this from the neighbor in person - I'm happy I got the unsigned note with lint attached!

The other uniquely Dutch linguistic twist is the ubiquitous use of lekker, literally tasty.  You can of course, describe a cake as lekker, but you also hear parents describe kids playing wildly in the park, the school, or the living room as “lekker spelen” for having fun.  

Frans, lekker trommelen...

 ….  Or sometimes when an elderly person enters the train and someone offers his/her seat, the typically hearty Dutch reply with “Blijf lekker zitten” or literally, “Stay tasty sitting”… for “ No, don’t get up.”  

How could anyone keep from smiling when someone tells you to “stay tasty sitting”?