Dunglish

Yes, they do have a whole bunch of hip and cool T-shirts, but I just don’t get the joke/pun here. Am I too square? Did I miss something when I actually lived in the hardcore ‘hood’ De Bijlmer in Amsterdam back in 1999?

Anyone? I’ve never been at a loss like this! The ‘literal’ translation would be, “fuck credible (freshly chopped herring pic), I come (?) incredible.” Help.

UPDATE: Thanks to Kees in the comments, here’s some Dutch hiphop from De Jeugd van Tegenwoordig (The Youth of Today, an expression often used to diss young people unrightfully IMHO) that might clear part of this up.

I found this while looking for something else. My gut tells me it’s from the 1990s, but if anyone remembers this on television let me know.

How scary is this though, a Dutch advertisement with Dutch subtitles? Of course, it was done on purpose, but still, it’s scary.

As sharply pointed out to me by Reinier (thanks!), this just hurts: a Dutch University offering Dutch language courses to foreign students who couldn’t even be bothered to use proper English on their website.

Some painful examples:
- What time are the colleges? (colleges = lectures)

If you do not know Dutch already – the whole point to these courses! – there’s a huge chance you have no clue what they mean. The sentence is not brilliant either.

- You learn to communicate well, as well as in the cafe as in the classroom.

Direct translation from Dutch grammatically and culturally. Pain.

- Staffmember, targetgroup, etc.

No so bad really sticking words together, at least you know what they’re on about.

Not convinced? Pretend you’re Chinese, have never been to Europe, speak some English and are trying to find out what they’re on about.

The argument I sometimes hear with Dutch universities is that you’re suppose to know some Dutch if you come to study here. That’s not true: the requirement is that you can function in English and are encouraged to learn Dutch, which I would encourage everyone to do. However, the Dutch gets in the way of the English, and in this case, the English gets in the way of the Dutch. Now I’m confused.

Someone named Eric (thanks!) tipped me on this wonderful site a while back and now it’s time to share the joy. I am almost 100% sure that it was translated using automatic translation. Since communicating properly is less important than selling and service, allow me to share the wealth.

Some riveting highlights:

- Dump prices: Against absolute dump price. (I’ll let the Dutch explain that!)
- We use at order minium of 9.99 (something about money)
- Diversen parts (half and half!)
- Soon on stock

Go take a tour!