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Talking Dutch

bijgeloof

I thought someone had got the date wrong. It was the last day of March when I read about the opening of the new departure hall at Brussels Airport. The title ran Luchthaven Zaventem denkt aan bijgelovige passagiers – Zaventem Airport thinks about superstitious passengers. (By the way, Brussels Airport is outside Brussels in Zaventem, and no one in Flanders calls it by this new name, but that’s another story, perhaps for Anje Otte’s “Fifth Column”.)

Surely this airport story was a day early. It sounded like a so-easy-to-unmask April Fool’s joke. But no, apparently in the coming weeks the new incheckbalies – check-in desks – will be opened for holidaymakers. Rows 1 to 12 are open now, and, in the words of the airport’s woordvoerder – spokesman: “Eind juni wordt een muur verwijderd en installeren we rij 14 – At the end of June a wall will be removed, and we will install row 14”.

Alistair MacLean
(April 14, 2010)

jongeren

It’s about time he settled down. What, 26 and not married? What’s wrong with him? Many of us not in the first flush of youth will remember the pressure to put down roots. The wanderlust of youth, the desire to try new things and new places, the urge to break with your parents and go off and do your own thing: such are the imperatives of being young.

Yet, a recent study seems to show all this up as a hippie dream. In short, it concludes that Vlaamse jongeren willen een partner, een huis en een kind tegen dat ze 26 zijn – young Flemish people want a partner, a house and a child by the time they are 26.

In the past, jongeren – young people thought first een carrière maken – have a career; en dan op het gemak uitkijken naar een partner – and then take your time to find a partner, om een gezin mee te stichten – to start a family. It appears that few young’uns have this perspective today.

Alistair MacLean
(April 7, 2010)

straat

Some street names are a dead giveaway: Wetstraat – Law Street – is synonymous with government in Belgium, being the address of the federal parliament. Others tell something about the country: Leopold III laan refers to the king who abdicated in 1951, who in this case has an avenue, rather than a lane, named after him.

Likewise, you shouldn’t be surprised to read the headline Opnieuw vliegtuigbom gevonden in Bombardementstraat – Another aircraft bomb found in Bombardment Street, which was the case in Evergem not so long ago.

Of course, you will find an abundance of flowers and animals: Boterbloemstraat – Buttercup Street, Schapenweg – Sheep Way. Some odd names soon reveal themselves: a street called Tramlaan – Tram Avenue – out in the country tells you that along the side of this strangely wide road there once rolled a rural tram.

Alistair MacLean
(March 31, 2010)

kortingsbon

Unless you have a “Geen reclame – No junk mail” sign on your letter box, you will probably receive all sorts of leaflets inviting you to grab a pair of scissors and join the world record holders at cutting out bonnetjes – coupons.

In Belgium, an amazing 155 million kortingsbonnen – reduction coupons – were handed in to shops last year, saving shoppers a total of €123 million! Gemiddeld gebruikt een gezin 34 bonnetjes op een jaar tijd – on average, a family uses 34 coupons in a year. Not that you will be saving much: a coupon is usually worth 80 euro cents, but, as we say in Scotland, every mickle makes a muckle.

Alistair Mac Lean
(March 24, 2010)

uit

I’m not at my sharpest first thing in the morning. I had just heard daughter Kirsty yawn to her mother: Ik ben niet uitgeslapen. When she appears in the kitchen, I stupidly say to her: So you aren’t slept out. She gives me that look, and I backtrack with: Clearly I didn’t have enough sleep either.

Of course, we don’t “sleep out” in English. Strange because so many Dutch words beginning with uit- are rendered in English with out, if you follow me. Some match up easily. So uitbreken means to break out, either of prison or een brand is uitgebroken – a fire has broken out.

The verb uitgaan means to go out, as in to leave or to date someone. And uitdelen, which resembles to deal out, means just that: to hand out or to distribute. The three letters even become a verb: uiten – to utter.

Alistair MacLean
(March 17, 2010)

kapsalon

I have been sorting through boxes of slides I took years ago and came across myself looking eerily like one of my sons. Time has left not too much of a mark, I like to kid myself, but it has cruelly thinned me out on top. A side effect of this is that I don’t spend much time or money at the kapsalon – hairdresser. And people talking about bad hair days leave me cold; if only!

So when my eyes fell on a piece of mundane local news about the opening of a new kapsalon, I was surprised to find myself reading on. The proud owner is a young man called Nassim, who made his way to Belgium from Iraq to escape the miseries of the war there. The article begins tantalisingly: Achter de twee blauwe ogen die schuchter naar me kijken, schuilt een woelig verleden – Behind the two blue eyes that look at me shyly hides a turbulent past.

Alistair MacLean
(March 10, 2010)

piepklein

One of the gems of Flemish television is the programme that follows the evening news on VRT. Its name, Man bijt hond – Man bites dog – reflects the fact that it takes an unusual look at ordinary events.

The programme’s reporters manage to make the most reserved of people open up in front of the camera. One of the weekly themes is a visit to villages around Flanders, where a local guide points out the places and people of interest.

Recently the Mbh team descended on Liedekerke. One of the local characters persuaded to talk to them was a sprightly senior citizen who has a remarkable talent for parking. His garage is between his terraced house and the next. I say garage but, at 1m55 cm wide, it’s piepklein – tiny. I suggest you pause now and measure that.

Alistair MacLean
(February 17, 2010)

knuffelbeer

You may not have noticed, but the sap is rising. Spring may not be in the air quite yet, but nature is preparing, as are those in love by sending Valentine messages to each other and to the press.

Some messages are signed boringly with “Marc” or “An”; others are more familiar: knuffelbeer – cuddly bear; bolleke – chubby. Some messages promise a bed of roses: de laatste Valentijn als jouw verloofde – the last Valentine as your fiancé; binnenkort word ik jouw man – soon I’ll be your husband; het wordt zoals ik beloofde – it will be as I promised. Ah, promises, promises.

Alistair MacLean
(February 10, 2010)

bedrieger

We all love a conman – bedrieger, as long as we’re not the ones being conned. The 26-year-old Abdelkarim Serhani, and his entourage, has been living the life of Riley staying at expensive hotels and borrowing peperdure – very expensive cars, and dit alles zonder achteraf voor de rekening op te draaien – all this without later footing the bill. He was up to his tricks at the recent Autosalon – Motor Show in Brussels, where he almost managed to “test-drive” a Rolls Royce before being rumbled.

How does he do it? Serhani geeft zich uit voor de zoon van een Arabische prins – Serhani poses as the son of an Arab prince. He is in fact a former student nurse from Elsene in Brussels (though sometimes a police cadet from France, depending on who he’s talking to).

Alistair MacLean
(February 3, 2010)

mag

Thank goodness a spade is a spade in any language. Learning the names of objects in another language is not too difficult and certainly not for an English speaker learning Dutch. Yes, you may say, a spade is een spade, but it’s also een schop, and the four of spades is schoppen vier, and the expression “call a spade a spade” is quite different in Dutch: het kind bij zijn naam noemen (“call a child by its name”).

But that’s nothing compared to learning how to use a word like mag, the singular of mogen, which can mean “may”, “should”, “can” or simply “is”, and is pronounced as a Scotsman would say “mach”. Modal verbs is what the grammarians call them – those words that add the idea of obligation, speculation or permission to a normal verb. You might be tricked into thinking that mogen with its singular form mag is simply the same as “may”. If only things were so simple.

Alistair MacLean
(January 27, 2010)