So, did anybody have a go saying
Vervoerdersaansprakelijkheidsverzekering
to themselves in the mirror today? Just asked my seven year old who 18 months ago couldn’t speak Dutch, and he said it without pausing. Imagine the score you’d get in Scrabble with this one.
Oh, and for anyone who couldn’t sleep at night for worrying, the toilet doors are back on at that DC, but the graffiti on them hasn’t been removed. So what was the point of it all… except punishment !
pierrot 14:
I have always found the Dutch and Flemish language to be something that you hear in a StarTrek movieYou listen to 2 Dutch drivers having a convirsation it sounds like they have a really bad cold and are forever clearing their throats
Languages are a really funny thing in that part of Europe, for example, in Germany Aachen on the northern border the ch is pronounced as K, (Aarken) but down the south Munchen the ch is pronounced as SH. Love the diversity
I worked for Den Bos. Van means From.
The boss came from his father Den Bos.
From Hartogh
From Dijk.
yeah,not good at all
Spardo:
Life is way to short to learn Welsh.The husband of a much older cousin, native to North Wales, spoke it as a first language as a child. In school, following the habits with minorities all over the world, he was wacked over the knuckles with a ruler if he was caught not speaking English.
Years later after a working life as a teacher and headmaster, he and my cousin retired to Llanfairfechan and decided that they were going to learn (him to re-learn) his native language. They gave up after several months, way too difficult even for him. So sad.
Thankfully things have changed.
True, David.
Some years ago I used to drink in a social club in Carmarthen, one of the regulars was a nice old boy who’d worked all his life on the railways, me being into steam we had some good chats. Never realised he spoke Welsh till one evening another bloke spoke to him and he replied fluently. I commented on this, and Con told me that Welsh was indeed his first language, but amongst his generation, it was considered bad manners to speak Welsh if you were in the company of someone who didn’t. I’ve actually had people apologise to me for it; I always reply that it doesn’t bother me in the slightest. I fully support it despite not speaking it myself; thousands are denied the privilege of speaking their native tongue worldwide.
Sidevalve:
Spardo:
Life is way to short to learn Welsh.The husband of a much older cousin, native to North Wales, spoke it as a first language as a child. In school, following the habits with minorities all over the world, he was wacked over the knuckles with a ruler if he was caught not speaking English.
Years later after a working life as a teacher and headmaster, he and my cousin retired to Llanfairfechan and decided that they were going to learn (him to re-learn) his native language. They gave up after several months, way too difficult even for him. So sad.
Thankfully things have changed.
True, David.
Some years ago I used to drink in a social club in Carmarthen, one of the regulars was a nice old boy who’d worked all his life on the railways, me being into steam we had some good chats. Never realised he spoke Welsh till one evening another bloke spoke to him and he replied fluently. I commented on this, and Con told me that Welsh was indeed his first language, but amongst his generation, it was considered bad manners to speak Welsh if you were in the company of someone who didn’t. I’ve actually had people apologise to me for it; I always reply that it doesn’t bother me in the slightest. I fully support it despite not speaking it myself; thousands are denied the privilege of speaking their native tongue worldwide.
My Grandfathers were from a Welsh speaking family in Llanelli. Their father went over to Cornwall to work and returned after a while with his bride, my Gt. Grandmother, a very strong minded woman. Her new Welsh family were furious that the son had married an Englishwoman (yes, I know, we had a laugh about that) and refused to speak anything but Welsh. She responded by saying her sons would never learn Welsh, and kept her word, though one of them did take it up later.
A further twist to this is that a couple of generations before that, this Welsh family were descended from an immigrant from Devon.
Intolerance works both ways and can trip you up.
One company you see around struggling to get drivers have put all their recruitment needs through an agency.
I was buggered to understand why Gayfreight could no get staff. [emoji12]
Wheel Nut:
One company you see around struggling to get drivers have put all their recruitment needs through an agency.I was buggered to understand why Gayfreight could no get staff. [emoji12]
And this buggering business, was it because you answered the call Malcolm? 
Fockeday has already been mentioned, but I often see them around, especially if I am up NE way, and always have a little giggle and hum a little tune, Fockedee, Fockedoo, Fockeday.
I was sharing a meal with some of their drivers one evening in Abbeville and mentioned the glee which their name caused in Anglos. They were not particularly amused, I think they had heard it all before, many, many times. 
pierrot 14:
Geoffo:
Bosch is pronounced Boss not Bosh in Dutch.I was always under the impression that “CH” in Dutch, or Flemish come to think of it, was pronounced as a “K”
The town of Enschede comes to mind, pronounced enskedé
The ch sound in Dutch is always as in loch, even after an S, which is why the Dutch use it as a shibboleth, because people will assume it’s pronounced sh, as the same series of letters is pronounced in German. So, Scheveningen is S’kheveningen.
There’s no sh sound in Dutch; they use sj to represent this sound but it’s always in foreign words.
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Spardo:
Fockeday has already been mentioned, but I often see them around, especially if I am up NE way, and always have a little giggle and hum a little tune, Fockedee, Fockedoo, Fockeday.I was sharing a meal with some of their drivers one evening in Abbeville and mentioned the glee which their name caused in Anglos. They were not particularly amused, I think they had heard it all before, many, many times.
Another chestnut that causes mirth is when an anglophone is asked whether they speak French:
replying “A little bit”,
gets `em giggling and telling the serving wench how poorly equipped we foreigners are!
If you cut corners he’ll be in the TM’s office…
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This thread needs more pics… Here’s the obvious one for now.
I guess you’d always be “on time” if you’re a “Regular” person who eats their bran every day. 
IndigoJo:
pierrot 14:
Geoffo:
Bosch is pronounced Boss not Bosh in Dutch.I was always under the impression that “CH” in Dutch, or Flemish come to think of it, was pronounced as a “K”
The town of Enschede comes to mind, pronounced enskedéThe ch sound in Dutch is always as in loch, even after an S, which is why the Dutch use it as a shibboleth, because people will assume it’s pronounced sh, as the same series of letters is pronounced in German. So, Scheveningen is S’kheveningen.
There’s no sh sound in Dutch; they use sj to represent this sound but it’s always in foreign words.
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One could also point out that the “CH” in Dutch, is the same as the CH in German, - as in arschlo**ch** for example.
The SH sound from English, has it’s direct equivalent in Hebrew and Russian, where the SH sound is represented by a “W”.
(Hebrew is written Arse-about-face btw)
and шесть from Russian (“Six”) pronounced “shyest” sounds like a Scottie trying to say the German “Sheisst” whilst I’m at it…
There is very few more embarrassing.
[emoji23][emoji23][emoji23]
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I had an insight recently into why so many Dutch speak English. There was an open day at the state school that my daughter is going to next year. Among other things, the school was proud to show off their English department.
It was quite amazing. They had recreated a little bit of England around the three class rooms used for English. They had an authentic red telephone box that they had shipped in from somewhere and bunting in the corridor. There was also a mannequin dressed in a authentic British policeman’s outfit complete with helmet. On the walls of the classrooms were maps of the British Isles showing all the counties and other posters depicting images of Britain.
The teachers explained to the visiting parents that English is taught from seven years old, so by 11 or 12, the kids are pretty much fluent. They try to teach the English accent but with so many American programmes on Dutch tv, it’s inevitable that some kids will adopt an American style accent. Also, they would organise school trips to York each year via the Rotterdam - Hull ferry.
And it wasn’t just English. They also had a German and French department, again decorated with flags and other stuff from those countries.
And this was just a normal Dutch state school. It was all very impressive !
I see these quite often.They always seem to be rather professional looking,but I can’t help wondering what exactly is in the trailer.
A little lesson in Dutch:
There are 2 types of G, a soft G (as the Scottish pronounce Loch) for people below the big rivers, and a hard G (with a Grrr throat sound) for people above the big rivers.
To pronounce “Sch” as a “Sk” as in Skeveninken, shows that either you are English spoken, or you speak a horrible southern dialect.
In school you had to pronounce the following sentence: “ Schijndelse Schooiers schrijven in Schone Schriften” to check if Sch was correct.
Sch is pronounced as Sg (hard S, soft G) so Sgeveningen ( the second G pronounced as in thiNG)
The Dutch pronounce every letter in a word, double A, E, O, U extend the sound of these vowels as in: “Kaas” (cheese), Eet (eat), Oor (ear, Uur (hour)
The combination of I and J is one letter IJ and pronounced as Ay
s’Hertogenbosch is pronounced as Sertogenboss but most Dutch people call it Den Bosch ( pronounced “Den Boss”
Another one to try Citycat is Gorinchem (yes the Dutch have CH in their speak, is pronounced as a G)
The C can be a K in Carl and a g in SCHOON (clean)
I recall a Co called Kim Fuchs.
caledoniandream:
A little lesson in Dutch:
There are 2 types of G, a soft G (as the Scottish pronounce Loch) for people below the big rivers, and a hard G (with a Grrr throat sound) for people above the big rivers.To pronounce “Sch” as a “Sk” as in Skeveninken, shows that either you are English spoken, or you speak a horrible southern dialect.
In school you had to pronounce the following sentence: “ Schijndelse Schooiers schrijven in Schone Schriften” to check if Sch was correct.
Sch is pronounced as Sg (hard S, soft G) so Sgeveningen ( the second G pronounced as in thiNG)
The Dutch pronounce every letter in a word, double A, E, O, U extend the sound of these vowels as in: “Kaas” (cheese), Eet (eat), Oor (ear, Uur (hour)
The combination of I and J is one letter IJ and pronounced as Ays’Hertogenbosch is pronounced as Sertogenboss but most Dutch people call it Den Bosch ( pronounced “Den Boss”
Another one to try Citycat is Gorinchem (yes the Dutch have CH in their speak, is pronounced as a G)
The C can be a K in Carl and a g in SCHOON (clean)
Explained better than I could explain it. As I’ve explained before I’m a native Dutch speaker, so sometimes struggle to translate this to English.
Thanks for the Dutch lesson. Yep, it is a hard language but hopefully one day I’ll manage to speak it a bit. I’m just amazed at my seven year old twins. They came to the country not speaking a word, and now they’re speaking Dutch and doing those sounds from the back of their throat just like the rest of them. I use the kids to help translate for me when speaking to my father in law. He only speaks a few words of English.
