You look at it, and you think, if I stare at this long enough, I can make it out. Most of the words are about the same size, and there has to be some Latin bases here and there…
Hehe, I’m married to a Dutch woman. I’m am American of non-European descent, for context.
I speak Gujarati and Spanish and a smidge of Hindi and Japanese, other than English. She speaks Dutch, Danish, German, and English.
When I moved to the Netherlands, I told her “We both know something about languages. I have to say this: speaking Dutch is like speaking German while spitting out your teeth after someone punched you in the mouth.”
She answered back, and I’m paraphrasing, “Tja, het is wel toepasselijk dat “Dutch Directness” het eerste is wat jij onder de knie hebt, jij Amerikaanse betweter.”
“Schat, dat is wel het meest diplomatieke wat ik vandaag had kunnen zeggen, gezien de daden van de VOC in het land van mijn voorouders.”
The Dutch word for it is “leedvermaak”, incidentally.
God I love Dutch.
You look at it, and you think, if I stare at this long enough, I can make it out. Most of the words are about the same size, and there has to be some Latin bases here and there…
nope…
Hehe, I’m married to a Dutch woman. I’m am American of non-European descent, for context.
I speak Gujarati and Spanish and a smidge of Hindi and Japanese, other than English. She speaks Dutch, Danish, German, and English.
When I moved to the Netherlands, I told her “We both know something about languages. I have to say this: speaking Dutch is like speaking German while spitting out your teeth after someone punched you in the mouth.”
She answered back, and I’m paraphrasing, “Tja, het is wel toepasselijk dat “Dutch Directness” het eerste is wat jij onder de knie hebt, jij Amerikaanse betweter.”
“Schat, dat is wel het meest diplomatieke wat ik vandaag had kunnen zeggen, gezien de daden van de VOC in het land van mijn voorouders.”
“Touché!”
“Jazeker!”
Leedvermaak: the experience of joy or satisfaction at someone else’s pain or displeasure, but whilst standing on/near a dike/dam/floodgate.
Precies. Ik vind het heerlijke.