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Amai, zeg

“How about the interesting exclamation-mark-like words and sounds?” asks Gonca Gokgoz, a Turkish reader of Talking Dutch. “I find them very amusing and they always create a sympathy with the native speakers.”
Philip Ebels
(February 1, 2012)
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Geen goede voornemens

I’ve given up on new year’s resolutions. I’m not even that old, but I have enough experience to know that they don’t work. They’re like rules: they’re made to be broken.
Philip Ebels
(January 18, 2012)
Zalig kerstfeest en een gelukkig nieuwjaar

I fully understand that I am the last person you need to wish you a Merry Christmas, let alone a Happy New Year.

But since the postman, the newspaper carrier and the traffic warden will surely do the same, here it is: Zalig kerstfeest en een gelukkig nieuwjaar.
Philip Ebels
(December 21, 2011)
Woord van het jaar

It’s that time of year again when people start looking back and sizing up the events of the last 12 months. What was the biggest news of 2011? What was the most spectacular discovery? What was the best film? And, most importantly, what was het woord van het jaar, the word of the year.
Philip Ebels
(December 7, 2011)
Santa’s ancestor

Over the last couple of weeks, you must have noticed the sudden presence of a bearded bishop in shop windows across the country, often in the company of his dark-skinned friends.
Philip Ebels
(November 23, 2011)
Brussels is tof!

Congratulations Albert Verdeyen for having been chosen Brusseleir van ’t joêr, or Brusselaar van het jaar in standardised Dutch, the capital’s person of the year.
Philip Ebels
(November 9, 2011)
Flemish painter Pieter Brueghel the Elder depicted 80 proverbs on one canvas
Beter laat dan nooit

More than three months ago, Flanders Today reader Vincent Goossens from Mortsel made the suggestion “to dive into the vast and rich collection of Dutch-language proverbs”.
Philip Ebels
(October 25, 2011)
IJ!

To compound or not to compound. It seems I’m not the only one who’s having fun. Leah Barrios “had to chuckle,” she writes, “because I have what I call the Dutch disease”.
Philip Ebels
(October 11, 2011)
The Dutch disease

I once wrote about tongbrekers, tongue breakers or twisters, and how much fun they can be. Try saying Hottentottententententoonstelling, for example, five times in a row as fast as you can. Hilarious.
Philip Ebels
(September 28, 2011)
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Wuk dadde?

The West Flemish are upset. Their dialect, supposedly spoken in the new TV series Het goddelijke monster (The Divine Monster), an adaptation of Tom Lanoye’s novel of the same title, is being “raped”, according to one linguistics professor. “Or gemassacreerd as we would say,” he continues, massacred. “It hurts the ears of every West Fleming.” The governor of the region said he “was having difficulties watching it until the end”.
Philip Ebels
(September 14, 2011)