Aaaaaarrrrgggghhhh!!!!!!!!!
That one word describes not only the frustration I feel about my total inability to learn Dutch, but the atonalities in that vented expletive also sum up the essence of Dutch: when in doubt, lengthen your “ahrs” and gargle for that phlegm that’s been stuck in the back of your throat for the last several days. Our friend Terry, who lived here for four years, claims that Dutch is a pirate language not because they stole it from anyone — it IS German-based — but because spoken Dutch sounds like a bunch of pirates communicating between bouts of expectorant-hacking.
I never thought I’d ever say that German is (a) a relatively easy language to figure out and (b) sounds… Read more...