Re: OT: Official language post

----- Original Message -----
From: "Andreas Johansson" <andjo@...>
To: <CONLANG@...>
Sent: Tuesday, April 01, 2003 5:06 PM
Subject: Re: OT: Official language post


> Quoting Jan van Steenbergen <ijzeren_jan@...>:
>
> >  --- Andreas Johansson skrzypszy:
> >
> > > Seeing that I don't know Dutch, I thought I'd try to translate, and
> > give all
> > > the proper Dutchistanis a jolly good laugh.
> > >
> > > > Ik wilde proberen, dit email in het Nederlands te
> > > > schrijven.
> > >
> > > "I will try to write this e-mail in Dutch."
> >
> > More or less correct. "wilde" literally means: "wanted". In this case it
> > would
> > be best translated as "would like".
>
> Ah, it's quite similar to Swedish _ville_ then, which also means "wanted".
>
> > > > Ik heb waarschijnlijk veel vergissingen gemaakt
> > >
> > > "I have probably made many errors"
> >
> > 100 % correct! Yay!
> >
> > > > Mijn familie verhuist in de zomer naar Belgie, maar ik
> > > > kan niet met hun gaan.
> > >
> > > "My families goes to Belgium in summer, but I cannot go with them."
> >
> > Families? Why plural? I would simply say: "My family".
>
> Brainfart. Meant to wrote simply 'family'.
>
> > "Goes" is wrong. "Verhuizen", as Christophe explained, must be
> > translated as
> > "move", in the specific meaning of changing residence.
>
> OK. For some reason I was unable to spot the _huis_ in the middle, so I
merely
> supplied a verb that seemed to make sense in context.
>
> > > > Ik moet hier in Canada blijven
> > > > omdat ik aan de universiteit hier studer.
> > >
> > > "I must remain here in Canada, to study at university here."
> >
> > Well, "omdat" is "because". The rest is OK.
> >
> > Andreas, I see that you master the List's official language to a very
> > acceptable degree. I doubt whether I would have done equally well with a
> > text
> > in Swedish.
> > Let me hereby congratulate you and encourage the others to take your
> > example!
> > ;))
>
> Thanks. Hehe ...
>
> I've never studied Dutch, but one of my sicker hobbies used to be reading
> content declarations on foodstuffs etc in Dutch first, and see what I
could make
> out, only then checking against the Swedish/English/German version.
>
> Incidentally, I'm quite unable to write any Dutch myself; what competence
I have
> in regard to Dutch is very passive.
>
>                                                             Andreas

The great thing about dutch is that you can write in it, and everyone
can(roughly) understand you.  It's a good reason to be an official language.