Dunglish

The stars haloing the company name reminds me of a crown of thorns. I especially like “edress”, as it is unbelievably creative. Don’t forget to take a tour of the web site. When targeting expats, address them in a ‘dialect’ they can actually understand. It makes me wonder what the rental contracts look like.

(Photo: Bram)

Here’s another unnecessary mixed grill of Dutch and English, spotted in Delft. A fellow Dunglish spotter also mentioned a restaurant in de Pijp area of Amsterdam called “Prins of India”, which is still around, as if it ‘where’ a choice (”of” in Dutch means “or”).

(Photo: René)

These travel tips were translated into 11 European languages using Dutch as a source language. As for “Rum begging” (?!)(cockney?), well it’s suppose to be a translation of… let me look it up… “Gaan we raar praten?” (We’re going to talk funny now, aren’t we?)(still not great, I know). This travel guide bites big time. As for being macho (or boring, really), this is probably as good as it gets by Dutch standards.

Reading this actually tires me out. “Store voor Men en Women” (”Store for men and women”) is hard to read and not quite true. Despite the name, these Dutch stores usually have one store for men and another for women. Will this one be different? Why do Men and Women have capitals? Why is Women in bold? The company’s web site is available in Dutch, German and French, with English used for headings. We be tired now.

I normally would not be bothered by a typo, as one typo does not a Dunglish mistake make. However, this typo has something playful (or playfull?) about it. It’s downright cute.

The person who came up with this didn’t work very hard at all. They figured “2 halen 1 betalen”, which rhymes and is even nicer than in English, is simply “Take 2 pay for 1″. They are basically inviting you to steal. As far as I know, people shoplift enough from this store as it is.

This scrumptious piece of Dunglish can currently be admired on Dam Square in Amsterdam in full view of hundreds of thousands of people. I’ll leave the very questionable translation alone, as it’s too scary for me.

The other day I went into a shop in downtown Amsterdam to buy shoes. As I was trying on the shoes, one of the saleswomen went up to a tourist and said “Can you help me?”. The tourist quickly left the shop. As I paid for my shoes, I explained very nicely in Dutch to the young saleswoman and her manager that she should have said “Can I help you?” or “May I help you?”, which is almost the same in Dutch. The manager’s answer was “ah, but she’s only been working here for two weeks”.

(Amsterdam gets about 1.5 million tourists a year, while the population of the city is about 730.000. They all go shopping downtown.)

More pictures are coming up! The very last batch of non digital Dunglish is not yet ready.

Imagine you’re a tourist trying to book an out-of-the-way hotel. Let me reassure you that tourists do visit places outside Amsterdam. One bad word can run your whole pitch, as in the case of this quaint hotel.

This restaurant made me smile. There are things on the menu I can’t even decode, like “spiced bread”. The “dragon sauce” is a classic, especially for anyone who does not read Dutch (dragon = tarragon). I cannot help but point out all those apostrophes.