Dutch sayings (Breda)

This might be of nice interest and fun to us all. The Dutch language is full of sayings - their use is disappearing, but I think they are part of national cultural herity. Dutch sayings are also a main reason Google Translate has difficulties translating Dutch. Some sayings of course have equivalents in other languages, but many do not.

A large part is derived, of coure, from sailing, farming and trading.

Please feel free to reply any association you have, also in other languages....I think I will post a Dutch saying let us say once a week.

There is a personal story to this: as I arrived in Netherlands as boy of 10, I mastered the language pretty quickly - but: I was lagging behind enormously in 'sayings'. I remember a schoolday on which we had, unexpectedly, an exam in Dutch sayings. I got a 3 minus (scale: 1 to 10, 1 = terribly bad, 10 = outstanding, 6 and more = satisfactory) and I cried after school. At home I did not want to say why I cried.

Later on in life I remarked I was suddenly becoming good at sayings, better than average Dutch people. It is probably the way unconsciousness works: 'Frustration because of lack of knowledge? GRAB anything you come across about the subject in future!'

This first time not yet an old saying....but a saying that illustrates the Dutch tendency to choose a 'small word', 'verkleiningsvorm'.

When someone says 'Ik heb daar een huis' listeners in their minds imagine a pretty large estate! So more modest and popular is to say: 'We hebben in Frankrijk een huisje' - lit.: 'We have in France a home-little'. It would be almost provoking to say 'We have a house in France'. That would be only appropriate to say when Protected content floor and Protected content garden or more.

Saying 1: 'Een vorkje prikken'

Google translation: 'To prick a fork'

Meaning: to eat something little....whereby little may be a whole meal, or just a starter.

I got the association with the Cinema group, Breda, before seeing the film, depending on starting time, we may 'prikken een vorkje'. That flashed through my mind, and thereafter I had to translate it in English to post it here. 'To eat something' before the film. Less prozaic and less precise than 'to prick a fork' - 'een vorkje prikken'.

If you want to let someone eat with you, you can suggest: 'Wil je een vorkje mee-prikken?' ('co-prick a fork')

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