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.
Learning Dutch is serious business. Not least for my Ukrainian students, who appear to have a somewhat different style of acquiring knowledge than I, a Dutchie who grew up with play-based education.
For them studying by no means equals playing.
Learning like a child by listening and copying? By endlessly trying, failing and starting all over?
Grammar is what they want. Solid theory.
They’re bulk consumers of it.
Before class, Irina shows me a book. A Ukrainian textbook for learning Dutch.
‘It’s really fun,’ she assures me.
Thankful for the glimpse offered, I eagerly browse through it to see page after page of Cyrillic writing. Theoretical treatises on isolated Dutch words - if my limited observation is correct. (I really must learn Ukrainian)
Child's play, it certainly is not.
I’m the first to understand a craving for theory. But where’s the play, the practise and the laughter, elements that stimulate the internalising of the material?
’Today, we'll be covering the comparative and the superlative,’ I tell the class as soon as everyone is seated.
‘Yum: theory,’ I can almost hear them thinking.
But surely no one will be surprised that we start practising as soon as the grammar is explained.
‘Mijn horloge is groter dan jouw horloge’ (My watch is bigger than yours), Volodymyr comes up with after some trying, failing and starting all over.
‘My watch is newer than yours,’ Irina ripostes.
’Mine is more expensive (duurder).’ Volodymyr again. The rest of the group now chuckles.
’Mine is the most beautiful (het mooist).’ Irina is not planning to give up.
Good!
And before they know it, the whole group is showering each other with Dutch comparisons - groter, mooier, leuker, lekkerder - while laughing their heads off.
‘That was serious fun (serieus leuk),’ Irina says afterwards.
‘Het leukst,’ Volodymyr has the final word.
Food lingo
Tasty - lekker
Tastier - lekkerder
Tastiest - het lekkerst
Lekker-lekkerder-het lekkerst
Saint-Jean is a plant-based bakery that deliberately doesn’t advertise with being vegan, just with being delicious. Some customers don’t even realize that the pastries and croissants baked in the back of the shop are vegan. Consequently, you don’t hear discussions about which is lekkerder or het lekkerst, plant-based fats or butter. Instead, you hear people making contented eating noises.
Saint-Jean, Lindengracht 158H Amsterdam. Open: Mon-Fri 8 AM-5 PM; Sat-Sun 9 AM-5 PM.