Welcome to the latest instalment of English and the Dutch, the newsletter with tips and tricks, fun facts, new translations and other good stuff about how Dutch speakers speak English. In your inbox every third Wednesday of the month.
The newsletter is written by me, Heddwen Newton. I’m half Dutch, half British, and I work as a translator, teacher, and linguist. I am the owner of the website www.hoezegjeinhetEngels.nl, and the newsletter English in Progress.
Quiz
Not too long ago I was listening to an interview with Dutch electric-car specialist Auke Hoekstra on The Guardian Science Weekly podcast. Hoekstra’s English was impeccable except for one silly little pronunciation issue. It’s a very typical mistake, even with near-native level English, and a great topic for this newsletter.
The issue?
Hoekstra pronounced debt as *dept*.
(If you want to hear what I heard, go here, and start listening at 4:20)
After Hoekstra says *dept*, the British interviewer uses the same word, clearly pronouncing it as “det”. This is the standard pronunciation. The b is silent.
There are, in fact, quite a few silent b’s in English. I have put a few in the story below. But beware, not all of them are silent! Can you decide which ones are silent and which ones are not?
Amid doubt, and indebted to a mapmaker, a plumber found a tomb. After climbing and clambering past many obstacles, he lumbered to his goal, and combed through crumbs with his thumb. He found an embalmed zebra, lamb, and limbless wombat. Dumbfounded, he cried: “I will absorb this, before it gets bombarded and I succumb.” How’s that for a blurb!
Recent translations
eet smakelijk
I was inspired to write an article on “eet smakelijk” because of this article about a social media discussion, started by someone wondering how to translate it. I especially liked this response:
The reason the translation is tricky has more to do with culture than with language. English speakers do not really wish each other a pleasant eating experience. They certainly do not do this when the speaker will not be joining in with the eating experience themselves. If your colleague is going to lunch, and you say “enjoy your meal!”, this might be taken as a sarcastic comment about that colleague taking too much time out of their day for their lunchbreak.
Even when starting a communal meal like in the picture above, wishing each other a pleasant meal is not exactly normal. Older Brits like me might say “bon appetít!”, but younger generations would do so only jokingly. Much more here.
beeldvorming
Dutch speakers use the word “beeldvorming” a lot. “Even voor mijn beeldvorming, hoe zit het nu met…?” It is tempting to say something like “mental picture” in English, but you shouldn’t. English speakers take the term “mental picture” quite literally, and that is not what you mean. A better translation leaves the mental picture out of it, and says something like “Just so I understand completely, what’s the deal with…?” Much more here.
een hart onder de riem
The trickiest one this month, because how do you translate “Met deze bos bloemen willen we je een hart onder de riem steken.”? The only good translation I can come up with is “These flowers are a token of our support.”
In other sentences, however, the possible translations rack up. Take “Ik kan wel een hart onder de riem gebruiken”. In English you can ask for encouragement, someone cheering you on, kind words, moral support, or even a virtual hug. Americans can also ask for “a shot in the arm”, but I’d be cautious with that one, as Brits such as myself will think you want to be vaccinated! More here.
Links & other fun stuff
The Clog Barn; the Netherlands in miniature in Australia
Tom Hartsuyker came to Australia at 18. He worked as a carpenter first, but then decided to open a campsite plus coffee house, and he filled the gardens with his own handmade models of Dutch buildings. Pictures and audio interview in article. / SBS (in Dutch)
A vakleerkracht for English at primary school
In the Netherlands, children are required to learn English from the age of 8, but at primary schools these English lessons are usually provided by the class teacher. A school in Vianen decided to do it differently; Wendy Bootsma is a specialised teacher for English, teaching the kindergartners just 20 minutes a week, and moving to an hour a week for the bigger children./ Onderwijs van Morgen (in Dutch)
International students speak about how welcome they feel in the Netherlands
“While most of the people I met were friendly, I noticed a shift in the attitudes towards internationals following the recent elections. Negative rhetoric against international students from certain political figures can easily permeate through society.”/ Volkskrant (in English)
Family ties
In the segment Family Ties, I delve deeper into the ways that Dutch and English are related. This month’s Family Ties gives answers to the quiz above, so if you haven’t done it yet, beware: there are spoilers ahead!
Words that end with mb
In English, the last b is never pronounced in words that end with mb. So tomb, bomb, thumb, crumb, lamb, limb, succumb, climb, and all those kinds of words: when you say them, the word ends in just an m-sound.
In the Middle Ages or earlier, the b at the end of these words did get pronounced, but it disappeared over the years. Unfortunately for English, by the time people stopped pronouncing the b, the spelling with the b had already been set.
The Dutch versions of many of these words also used to be pronounced with a b. The Dutch also used to say lamb, camb (comb/kam) and klimban (climb/klimmen). However, because Dutch was a bit later with setting down its spelling, we were lucky enough to not be stuck with those useless b’s.
Just compare: bomb - bom, thumb - duim, crumb - kruim(el), dumb - dom. In a few cases, the Dutch version is no longer in much use, but even there the pattern continues: womb is related to wamme, an old Dutch word for stomach, limb is related to leem, and numb (= gevoelloos) is related to benemen (compare the German “ich fühle mich benommen”).
The Dutch word tombe, which is pronounced with a very clear b, seems to be an exception. Though even here, we used to also have tomme in Dutch, but the pronunciation with the b seems to have won out.
I’ve put a more complete list of mb-words and their Dutch counterparts here.
Words that have an mb in the middle
When it comes to English words that have an mb somewhere in the middle, the not-100% rule is that if the word is related to a word that ends in mb, the b is still not pronounced. So climbing and combing still don’t have a b-sound, because climb and comb are words in their own right. Limbless (limb) and dumbfounded (dumb) also fall into this category.
Plumber is another one of these words; it is pronounced “plummer”. When children start learning English at secondary school, one of the first things that is presented to them is often a chapter about occupations (= beroepen). Plumber, therefore, is nightmare fuel for English teachers of 12-year-olds. “No, plummer. Plummer. PLUMMER! PLUMMER!!!!!”
What is the short word that ends with mb for plumber? Well, though it is not very well-known, English does have the word plumb (= loodrecht). The word is derived from the idea that if you tie a bit of lead (Latin: plumbum) on a string, it will hang straight down. This “plumb” is then used by a plumber to make his pipes straight.
(Actually, the word plumber is more directly derived from the fact that the pipes used to be made of plumbum, lead. This was before people knew about the infertility, IQ lowering, and death, and stuff.)
But, as in all cases when we are talking about English pronunciation, exceptions prove the rule. I have been able to think of three words that do pronounce their b’s, despite clearly being derived from one of those short mb-words: bombard, crumble (= verkruimelen), and Thumbelina (= Duimelijntje). I’m sure there are more! Let me know in the comments :-)
If the English word in question has an mb, but it is not related to a word that has an mb at the end, then the b does get pronounced. Clamber, slumber, lumber, lambast (nothing to do with the animal), and wombat (nothing to do with the reproductive organ); you just say the b. Yes, that does indeed mean that slumber and plumber do not rhyme.
Debt, doubt, and subtle
In general, the mb words don’t pose that much of a pronunciation problem for Dutch speakers once they reach a certain level of English proficiency. (Apart from plumber, which remains a problem for many. Perhaps their brugklas teacher didn’t shout at them enough. Or perhaps they once took a bit of chemistry, know the Latin for lead is plumbum, and feel that they know better than their English teacher that the correct pronunciation must include the b. I have had this discussion on more than one occasion. True story.)
Debt and doubt, those are the real problems. (Subtle would also be a problem, but it is so hard to pronounce with the b that people who aren’t sure about its pronunciation just don’t use it. Clever!)
So why is that b there, if it not fulfilling any function? Because much like my plumbum-stickler students, 16th century scholars felt strongly about the Latin roots of words. Take debt. When English took the word dette from French, it had no b, and it was pronounced as it was spelled. Scholars then decided that the word should be more similar to its Latin origin, debitum, and stuck a b in there. The b was, however, never pronounced.
Doubt has the same story. They wanted the word doute to be more like the Latin dubitare so they added a b to that one, too. (The French, sensibly, stuck with dette and doute.) Subtle used to be sotil, but was forced to be more like Latin subtilis.
In the case of these three words, the Dutch doesn’t help us at all. Debt is cognate with debet or debiteren, doubt is cognate with e.g. dubieus, and subtle in Dutch is, of course, subtiel. So Dutch went all-in on the Latin b’s, which is also perhaps why the Dutch-English pronunciation *dept* and *doupt* remains so very stubborn.
Answers quiz
Amid [dout], and [indetted] to a mapmaker, a [plummer] found a [toom]. After [climing] and clambering past many obstacles, he lumbered to his goal, and [comed] through [crums] with his [thum]. He found an embalmed zebra, [lam], and [limless] wombat. [Dumfounded], he cried: “I will absorb this, before it gets bombarded and I [succum].” How’s that for a blurb!
You can find a clip of me reading the text at the bottom of this post on my website.
Wanted: mistakes-spotters and feedback-givers
I get annoyed with myself when translations aren’t as good as they could be or other mistakes have slipped into my newsletter, and I know that many of you are fantastic at spotting mistranslations, inconsistencies, typos, ugly sentence structures, and more.
Are there any readers among you who would like to receive my newsletter a day or two early? That way you can email me any goofs you found, and I can rectify those for the main audience. No obligation or expectations!
And finally…
Dutch comedian and author Paulien Cornelisse is teaching Dutch in Sheffield in the UK for a year, and makes some observations about culture and language. (Interview in Dutch.)
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The number of mistakes in this newsletter is directly proportionate to the number of times my three-year-old woke me up last night.
Ah, love this. An American friend lived in Holland for a while, and at bedtime would say to her kids "slaap lekker, hoor!", which they understood as "sleep like a whore!"
Every time I see this friend, we tell each other to sleep like a whore, to our amusement and the consternation of our friends.
I cannot express my admiration enough. This is a very interesting newsletter + really well worked out + really extensive + analysis in depth + the level remains really high.