Trials and tribulations of a trilingual chick in learning Dutch

One of my goals when I arrived in Maastricht three years ago was to learn Dutch. Now let me tell you, I quickly learnt that this would be no easy feat. It is a language with some seriously unpronounceable letters for us English speakers! I mean the ‘g’ just does not sound like a ‘g’ at all, I think some other letter should have been invented for that sound.

Better yet, I think there should be some big fat manual which would somehow explain the sounds of this language. I always feel like I’m about to spit or strangle myself when trying to speak it, so I think I’ve been doing it wrong. Dutch speakers don’t seem to choke on their words in every other sentence, so I guess there must be a way. I just haven’t been able to find it yet!

Street name in Maastricht, in Dutch and Limburgish, by Rezansky via Flickr

Oh and by the way, no I do not speak Dutch. Unless ‘mag ik pinen’ [sic] counts? That’s about the only full sentence I can master these days. And to the sceptics out there, believe it or not, I have tried. To make matters worse, I’m not so bad at languages; I’m actually trilingual, speaking French, Creole and English. So you’d think that learning Dutch should technically not be so damn hard.

I took Dutch lessons at the university’s Language Centre when I first arrived. I even paid EUR 100 out of my monthly allowance, which ought to show how dedicated and determined I first was. I attended all my classes, learnt how to say “war come je vandaan?” [sic] and “hoe haat het” [sic]. (By the way, why so many ‘h’s in one single three-word sentence?)

I followed the entire course quite diligently next to all the work from University College Maastricht. And when I finished it after three months, I felt pretty proud of myself, I thought I had this down. All I had to do now was go out and speak Dutch at shopping malls, the market and all public places.

Sp you must be asking yourself by now, why the hell am I only able to say one sentence after three years? My answer is, Dutch people just don’t want you to learn their language.

A cold easter in Zealand- with a Ducth friend, doing ducth things I guess!

No seriously, every time I try to speak Dutch with my terrible accent and my mid-sentence choking, they just switch to three different languages. Yes all at once. Waiting for you to pick the one you prefer. German, French or English? And seeing that I speak two of these languages, temptation was too hard to resist.

For instance, once I went to the dentist to have a wisdom tooth removed. It was my first time at the dentist in Holland, and I was just hoping he would understand my problem, and not take out all of my teeth at once. I mean I like solid food. But apparently I did not need to worry. The dentist sat me down on his dentist chair, and did what he had to do. And he spoke to me at the same time, in German, and in French, and in Dutch and in English. Yes, at the same time as he was healing my ache; that is what I call some heck of a multi-tasker!

Oh well, at least I had a good excuse not to speak back; kind of hard when your mouth is open and your tooth is being pulled out. So maybe my first assumption about the Dutch not wanting the foreigners to learn their language was wrong, maybe the problem is that the Dutch are just too clever for the rest of us, and we just can’t keep up!

Celebrating Sinterklass in Maastricht, with a Dutch and a German friend

After having failed my first attempt, I decided to change tactics and sought help from my Dutch friends. The next thing I knew, I was sitting in my kitchen with a coffee in hand, learning Dutch nursery rhymes. Maybe I should have bought beers instead. The deal was that I would teach them ‘Frère Jacques’ in return. So I started, sang my song twice in a row, and that was it. They all could sing it pretty well. I thought maybe I should change career paths, I felt like such a good teacher!

Then it was my turn. I laboured all night learning ‘Boer, wat zeg je van mijn kippen?‘ (‘Farmer, what do you think of my chicken?’) (and yes I just had to google the name of the song as I couldn’t remember it). Please don’t ask me why that song, because I just don’t know. Maybe my friends thought farm animals were a very important part of the Dutch culture…

I think I did quite well overall. By the end of the evening I sounded like this:

“Boer, lala je lala mijn kippen?
Boer, lal heuu lala mijn lala?”

Dutch nursery rhyme: “Boer wat zeg je van mijn kippen”

At least I learnt a new melody, and the plural form for chicken. I was always taught to look at the bright side of life.

So that was it for me and Dutch; I decided that I was a lost cause. Nowadays I just revert to the good old ways, and I will share this useful tip with you: when one starts talking to you in Dutch, just nod and smile, nod and smile.

However I do want to end this article on a positive note, and not depress all those of you newcomers in the Netherlands out there. I have a few student friends who did manage to learn Dutch, and who speak it quite fluently now. Most of the successful ones did so by joining a student sorority or fraternity.

There they just didn’t have any choice really, they had to learn the language if they wanted to be part of the group. Therefore if you’re reading this right now, and are married with kids, and want to join a fraternity, you might warn your family of a few times ‘out with the guys’ a couple of nights a week. The good part, is that you do end up having very good friends, and very good times and the benefit of a new language.

Hen by James Morton via Flickr

Well, it’s what I’ve heard anyway. Personally I have seen too many scary American movies that involved very terrorising fraternity hazing.

I’m a little bit of a “kip”, I know.

By Amandine de Rosnay

Amandine de Rosnay is a Mauritian/French student at University College Maastricht. She is now focusing her studies in Social Sciences, more specifically in international relations and law.