I talked to my brother on the phone yesterday. Goodness gratious! Do we sound like a bunch of foreigners that learned to speak Dutch. Lots of ‘ehms’ and ‘aahs’. Lots of hesitations. Lots of weird sentences, or as I like to say “speaking Dutch words using English sentence structure”. Like a person does that learned to speak a second language.
Do feel that way too, brother? (We will find out now if he reads this blog!)
Last time I spoke Dutch before yesterday’s phone call was when I rang my mum and dad over Christmas. Last time before that was… September? That is when my brother and I temporarily went our separate ways, so it must be.
It makes me feel a bit uneasy. I know it is my mothertongue and it will always be somewhere in the back of my brain. I guess it mostly makes me feel so powerless. I can read all the Dutch I want, listen to music and what not, I have no problem understanding it at all. But when I open my mouth it doesn’t come out quite right. Even I can hear that.
There is English on my lips and in my mouth and on my tongue. There is English in my brain and in my ears and before my eyes.
What do I do when there is no-one to talk Dutch with?
oui depuis 
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Hi there. Enjoyed your blog. Think English is a wonderful language and love the way it grows and changes though know those changes challenge some.
I have a polish friend and am always struck by how she sounds in polish. I don’t really understand what she’s saying but she feels different, more animated in her first language. So what interests me is the different kinds of you you can present in different languages, deliberately or otherwise and how differently people can see you because of the language you speak and who that allows you to be
Teach me how to speak Dutch and we can talk in Dutch all the time!
Great post – it truly is fascinating to see how horrible the English language has become. They say English is the hardest language to learn – I would have to agree. We have the present generation to thank for the steady decline of the English word.
Not to mention, Dutch sounds much prettier. 🙂
Did you have any experience with the Dutch language?
Why do you say English is horrible? It is a fact English is the least phonetic language, but I don’t know about being the hardest to learn. What about Russian, Arabic or Chinese?
I do not Ouidepuis! I was just being facetious! I would love to learn the language, though, and multiple other languages!
English in horrible in the regards of words like you’re and your, to, too, two, there, their, they’re, same words, different pronunciations, different spellings. English has been botched by the current generation with unnecessary acronyms and slang. I would definitely agree than those languages would be difficult to learn – I’ve had many people tell me that English is one of the most difficult to learn, but I’ve not done research as to which language is truly the most difficult to learn and why it would be.
Noud als je mij ziet en spreekt komt het nederlands wel weer boven!
Vast & zeker!
Hi, Having liked what I’ve seen of your blog I have nominated you for the Liebster award. I don’t know how many followers you have but your blog is worthy of many. This award is one way in which to make yourself prominent in the world of blogging. More information can be found at
Cheers Greta
I have 63 followers at this very moment 🙂
😋
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zeg het op schrift en ik neem wel een boekje mee om de oefeningen dan op papier te zetten.
Goed idee hè
Schrijven is het probleem niet, vader. Spreken daarentegen. Maar ze zeggen ‘zwijgen is goud’ toch 😉