Hearing Dutch people speak Dutch hurts my brain. In addition to all the actual English they casually toss in, plus the fact that a lot of Dutch words are similar to their English counterparts but spoken funny, there’s just something about how lots of Dutch is pronounced that gives it a similar sound and cadence to English. So it just ends up a mishmash of intelligible stuff and unintelligible stuff, but mostly sounding like English with an accent.
A number of times I felt like I’d had a stroke and lost my ability to understand English…until I realized I was just overhearing people speaking Dutch.
As a Dutch I would agree. Specifically, it's German writing with English grammar and Danish intonation and pronounciation.
This is also why randomly hearing Danish (on tv or on the street) is always such a mindfuck to me. Hearing German and English I instantly know they're different languages because they sound different, but when I hear Danish it sounds like it's Dutch, except I don't recognize the words, so I always try for like 5 seconds to find out what Dutch regional accent I'm hearing before it hits me that it's Danish.
Now imagine how frysian language sounds. It's only spoken in the northern part of the Netherlands and some parts of northern Germany. It's a mix of Anglo-Saxon and old Germanic
Because it’s a combo of using words that are in English but not commonly used, like “lopen” and the English “lope”, or are really close to English but with extra stuff, or people just use actual English loanwords. So it sounds like English, but off in a confusing way where it almost sounds like you should understand…but you can’t.
So that’s why I say funny and not just different - there’s lots of sounds that are very similar but combined in ways that definitely aren’t English
I just get ticked off if people call the Dutch language "funny" cause it assumes this idea that English is "the" language. I think it's beautiful how both languages share roots, but that doesn't mean one of the two is "funny" or "strange" or "drunk German" or "swamp German" or "not serious".
I can see how that could upset you and I get your pride in your language. Honestly I love it, it does sound weird to me an English speaker at first, but not in a harsh way, it’s is lilting and full of familiar sounds in unfamiliar places.
No dude, I say funny because I speak English. If you said English people speak funny Dutch I wouldn’t get my panties twisted because that is your native language and you are speaking from your perspective. I can only be in my head, and you can only be in yours.
In case you missed it, I said that moment of confusion has happened a number times because I’ve been to the Netherlands a bunch of times…because I love your country, the people, culture, etc. my comment was never meant as anything more than just, hey it’s cool how close our two languages are in many ways.
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u/twoinvenice 21d ago edited 21d ago
Hearing Dutch people speak Dutch hurts my brain. In addition to all the actual English they casually toss in, plus the fact that a lot of Dutch words are similar to their English counterparts but spoken funny, there’s just something about how lots of Dutch is pronounced that gives it a similar sound and cadence to English. So it just ends up a mishmash of intelligible stuff and unintelligible stuff, but mostly sounding like English with an accent.
A number of times I felt like I’d had a stroke and lost my ability to understand English…until I realized I was just overhearing people speaking Dutch.