Sure, I am Always Talkin’ Food, but I teach NT2 (Dutch as a second language) on the side. Mainly to young internationals who came to Amsterdam for or with love and intend to stay. For privacy reasons the names in these columns are fictitious.
Learning a language is learning a culture. Knowing the correct meaning and order of words is simply not enough. A language is much more than the sum of its words.
And that is largely culture specific.
The hardest part is the humor. If anything is culturally specific, it’s just that.
One country’s humor is another country’s insult.
As such, it is probably the last stronghold to be taken before you can say you have truly mastered a language.
And that is why you cannot start early enough to immerse yourself in a culture's sense of wit. Besides, learning is so much easier while having fun. A lesson not laughed is a lesson not learned.
Overgeneralizing here, obvs.
No matter how simple the joke, getting it creates a sense of being in control.
It’s the icing on the cake.
Even more so, when you can make people from another culture laugh in their native language, it's downright magical.
It gives you the powerful feeling that you are slowly cracking their language code.
Joke by joke.
And this can happen at any level. Take the Ukrainian students I made pronounce the number 111,111,111,111 during one of their first Dutch language classes, because they found the Dutch numerical system so hilarious. They unanimously couldn’t stop laughing out loud after several attempts to pronounce honderdelf miljard honderdelf miljoen honderdelfduizend honderdelf.
Or take Alek from Russia who, at level B1, remarked dryly about the habit of Dutch youngsters to abbreviate (‘afkorten’) almost every known household word, “Ze houden abso van afko’s.” (They absol love abbrevs.)
The proud smile did not leave Alek’s face that night.
Food Lingo
Broth - de bouillon
Ice cube - het ijsklontje/ijsblokje
Noodle - de noedel
Dumpling - de knoedel (but in daily life: de dumpling)
Cracking the Korean code
Korean restaurants have been in demand in Amsterdam for a while now, with many of them serving Korean BBQ and the like. Kim’s So Korean Food has a number of other dishes up its sleeve besides these. Such as naengmyeon (cold noodles in a broth with floating ice cubes). There is bibimbap (a rice dish), gun mandu (dumplings), gimbab (rice rolls), tteokbokki (rice cakes in red chili sauce) and much more - all freshly made. Trying to pronounce some of these dishes while ordering, is like trying to crack the Korean language code. Maybe that’s why they stick to QR ordering.
Kim’s So Korean Food, Molensteeg 13H Amsterdam. Open: Tue-Thur 1 PM - 9:30 PM, Fri 1 PM - 10 PM, Sat noon - 10 PM, Sun noon - 9:30 PM.