Sure, I am Always Talkin’ Food, but I work as a volunteer Dutch language teacher for Ukrainian refugees on the side. For privacy reasons the names in these columns are fictitious.
The thing my pupils most often groan about when they come across a confusing phenomenon in the Dutch language? That there’s no logic to be found.
‘Fortunately, the English language makes perfect sense,’ I then reply with a laugh.
People who learn a new language want clear rules without dozens of exceptions. So that they can cram those into their heads and the language automatically streams out of them fluently.
But a language is rarely systematic. Most have developed organically and are still changing every day. As a result, they are a jumble of erasures and patch-ups, deletions and emergency bandages. This is partly prompted by evolving insights on the basis of socially, politically and/or culturally driven developments.
The first thing I tell them is that instead of resisting, they just have to give in to the fact that there’s no logic system behind the Dutch language.
Or most languages, for that matter.
There is only one solution: practice, practice, practice.
This lack of common sense in my language is also a source of amazement to my Ukrainian pupils. Shaking their heads in puzzlement, they now try to master the numbers. In Dutch, numbers have a very different construct than in Ukrainian, they teach me.
Eenentwintig (21), but honderdeen (101) instead of eenenhonderd? And why not eenhonderdeen, when it’s tweehonderdeen (201), driehonderdeen (301) et cetera?
Because our numbers amuse them so much, I write the following on the whiteboard: 111,111,111,111.
It's Nadia's turn to say it out loud.
After a few times her attempts die in laughter.
‘Are you really saying that?’ Ilona chuckles when I demonstrate how it is pronounced.
I nod. In fact, it makes perfect sense to me.
An acquired taste
When learning a new language, certain phenomena really need to get used to. In the kitchen you call a taste that needs to get used to “an acquired taste”. Coffee, olives, wine, raw herring (rauwe haring) - they all have acquired tastes. You don’t like them at first, but after a while you start loving them. Most of my friends from abroad really resisted trying French fries with peanut sauce, until they did - and were hooked for life.
There’s a whole new generation of friettenten (chip shops) opening up in Amsterdam, like Fabel Friet. But my favorite still is Eiburgh Snacks. This caravan-like construction is a bit out of the way, but certainly worth the detour.
Eiburgh Snacks, Zuiderzeeweg 9, Amsterdam.
Fabel Friet, Runstraat 1, Amsterdam.