Too bad, so sad! 😭 English teachers are problem solvers 🕵️ camerawork and language mistakes 📷

Welcome to English and the Dutch, the newsletter with tips and tricks, fun facts, new translations and other good stuff about, well, English and the Dutch. In your inbox every second Wednesday.

The newsletter is written by me, Heddwen Newton. I also own the website www.hoezegjeinhetEngels.nl. If you are wondering, where did I sign up for this newsletter? That’s probably where you signed up for this newsletter. And if you have not yet signed up for this newsletter, you can do so by pressing this button right here:

Quiz

Can you spot the mistakes in the sentences below?

She’s a photograph.

She takes photo’s.

I found her contact details on the Internet.

The idiom depicted here is the same in English and Dutch. What’s the idiom?

Answers below!

Fun fact

The Dutch word “criterium” is “criterion” in English.

The Dutch word “stadion” is “stadium” in English.

The -on words come from Greek, and the -um words come from Latin. It is purely coincidence that for this pair of words, the Dutch ended up with a Latin word where the English chose the Greek word, and the other way around.

More here.

Dutch/English in the news

English teachers find a way to deal with differences in language proficiency

In Dutch-speaking countries, English is a school subject with huge differences in proficiency. Some children can’t even buy a loaf of bread while on holiday, other children spend so much time speaking English online that they are almost native speakers. Vmbo-school Het Rijks in Nijmegen has found a way to teach each student at their own level.

Catching poachers was almost impossible until this Dutch company invented a new type of camera

Dutch company Hack the Planet has developed cameras that use AI to detect poachers, and send the information to the people that need it in real time.

New translations

I post a new translation on hoezegjeinhetEngels.nl every day. For this newsletter, I have selected a few recent ones that I am proud of.

Helaas, pindakaas

I had already published my article when a helpful visitor wrote a comment alerting me to the fact that there is an English translation of this that also rhymes. It’s a little more mean-spirited than our “helaas, pindakaas” , I feel, but still: when Americans want to sarcastically mock someone’s unfortunate event, they say: “too bad, so sad!”. More here.

Concullega

There is no satisfying translation for “concullega”. As I was researching the term, I found a well-written piece of text by fellow translator Chris Hopley, explaining the reason for this is basically that Dutch speakers are much nicer than English speakers. Okay, I might be simplifying. Read the text here.

Tussenpaus

A tricky translation request from one of my regular contributors Ernie, I am quite happy with some of my translations, including “he is just there to keep the seat warm”. More here.

Laadpaalklever

A great question from reader Ineke, this is one where the English disappointed me. In English, people who hog the parking spot by a charging station are called an “EVhole”. Really, English, you could have come up with something better; Dutch wins this round! More here.

Quiz answers

She’s a photograph

Should be: She’s a photographer

I did my second interview on Monday (I haven’t had time to write the article yet, mea culpa!). My interviewee and I agreed that there were some mistakes Dutch people make that will make even the politest native speakers snigger (= gniffelen). A little later, I came up with a great example: mixing up “fotograaf” and “photograph”. Makes me smile every time. More here.

She takes photo’s

Should be: She takes photos

Perhaps the commonest mistake in the written English of Dutch people. And it is one that can be fixed by memorising one simple rule: there is never an apostrophe in an English plural (with one insignificant exception)

You’ll see this one in my quiz more often. It is a ubiquitous (= alomtegenwoordig) mistake, which is made by many native speakers, too.

I found her contact details on the Internet (capital i)

Should be: I found her contact details on the internet (lower case i) (even better: I found her contact details online)

For many years, Microsoft Word and other text-editing programs would tell you that the word “internet” should be written with a capital letter. It no longer does so (not in my 2019 version, anyway, I just checked), and with good reason. Most English publications stopped capitalising the word “internet” many years ago, and since November 2022, even the reasonably conservative Garner’s Modern English Usage has conceded that the i should be lower case:

The customer is king

When I first heard “the customer is king” I thought it was an incorrect translation of “de klant is koning”. Far too literal. The idiom as I had always used it was “the customer is always right”.

But having looked into a database of English texts from newspapers and other online publications, it seems that “the customer is king” is truly a much-used and well-understood phrase in English. It is more common in American English than in British English, which might be why I hadn’t heard it before.

I have not been able to find where it came from (only conjecture (= giswerk) without sources), my own guess is that it came to America with German immigrants translating their phrase “der Künde ist König”.

Revisiting “fanatiek” and “fanatical”

In my last newsletter’s quiz, I made the point that “fanatical” is too obsessive and dark to be a good translation of the Dutch “fanatiek”, which usually simply means “very enthusiastic”.

One wonderful person pointed out to me that the Oxford Learner’s dictionary in fact does list “very enthusiastic” as a definition for “fanatical”. (Thank you, wonderful person! I love feedback!)

After polling 157 native speakers, I can say that for 84%, “fanatical” does truly have a slightly dark edge. The smaller group that feels it can simply mean “very enthusiastic” seem to be young-ish Americans.

Because Dutch people typically write English for international audiences, my advice remains the same: avoid translating “fanatiek” with “fanatical”. Say “enthusiastic” or “passionate” instead. More about the polls here (scroll down).

And finally…

Australian comedian-slash-puppet Randy Feltface appeared on De Avondshow with Arjen Lubach. He had some important things to say about, incredibly, the waterschapsverkiezingen. Don’t let the dry subject fool you. It’s hilarious.

What did you think of this newsletter?

Great Good Okay Bad

Or just reply to this email and tell me anything you like!