Dunglish

Nicely pointed out as spam by the more aware people of the Internet, some Dutch search engine company still dares pollute my inbox after all those laws banning spam were passed.

And since they can’t spell and, according to Google — a real search engine — they are the only ones offering “Full Collor”, I feel no shame in shaming them back. The part I really like is “met een volledige “Full Collor” pagina”, which translates to ‘a full full-colour page’ or if I were still doing this professionally, I would make it ‘a full-page full-colour advertisement’ or something like that.

Before I dig into this one, I want to tell everyone that Dunglish now feeds to Twitter. Come join in the fun at @Dunglish. Again, thanks to @beun for pushing it up my to do list.

And while @beun reminded me how 2007 RSS feeds are, this company name is so very 2000. To many Dutch people, ‘together’ and ‘to gather’ sound almost alike, hence the probable decision to just mix it all in here. Lykle, who originally posted this picture on Facebook, called it ‘fail’ and I couldn’t agree more. ‘Eat to gather’ makes no sense, no matter how you slice it and sounds thought up at the last minute, not to mention that nobody is going to ‘aural squint’ (as I call it) and thnk, ‘oh geez, they mean together!’. And then there’s ‘eat2network’, ‘eat2motivate’ and… wait for it…. ‘eat2buildyourteam’. I’m full already.

Kudoz for anyone who can appreciate the slightly veiled reference in the title.

(Photo: Lykle)

Today, we also have a badly written article in Dunglish by De Pers.

The learner’s English short sentences lacking subordinate clauses, the double negatives, the nonsense and the clichés. Barf. The sarcastic tone doesn’t work in English at all.

To the author of this pathetic piece of journalism: Don’t write in English if you can’t (and you can’t) and move if you don’t like it here — that’s what they tell us immigrants and expats all the time.

(Tip: Yelda, Link: De Pers)

Yes, we know what they are trying to say, but in the words of Kees who submitted this, “Fairly standard Dunglish, but it did make me smile.”

I am surprised at the quality considering you’re supposed to be able to communicate in Dutch and English to work at this big bank.

I’d have left the Dunglish out altogether, as chances are the banking software is in Dutch. The question “Do you like to use” tells me someone doesn’t understand English passively. And trading in your ID in any language is scary, and the Comic Sans font doesn’t help, either.

(Photo: Kees)

OK, it could be worse, but the big bad Dutch phone company has every resource imaginable at its disposal to crank out proper English for tourists at the Netherlands’ Schiphol Airport. We’ve talked about this before, big corporations not understanding the difference between adverbs and adjectives, as they are written the same way in Dutch.

Nevertheless, this is sloppy and there’s no excuse this time.

Suggestions:
– Getting online is simple and easy!
– Get online simply and easily!

And the rest: That nasty Dutch habit of writing 3,- (no hyphens in English, it’s totally useless, just € 3 will do, we know there are no cents) and then the twisted sentence afterwards with no cause and effect, known as the ‘missing link’). It should read ‘To purchase time online with your credit card, just click the top button’.

Shame on you, expensive monopolistic Dutch phone company!

(Photo: Jeroen)

I know first hand what it’s like to try and translate Dutch names and concepts into English, but the result here is just Dunglish, as pointed out by Noor whose Dunglish radar went off when reading this.

“Whoever chooses the overnight in Gouda can choose from different possibilities.”

You can choose to read the rest or not. The VVV, (Dutch tourist board) should really make it a priority to communicate properly to the non-Dutch tourist segment and not churn out nonsense like this. There’s a crisis, you need tourists, time to improve the website, people! Cheese fail!

(Link: vvgouda.nl, Tip: Noor)

There are so many things wrong with this sign in both languages that calling it Dunglish is just not fair to the Dutch version. I have no idea where this was taken. In fact, to my non-native eye, there are more mistakes in Dutch than in English.

(Link: hyves)

I was biking down the street in Amsterdam the other day when I saw a van from this catering company. I think ‘The Eet-Team’ (referring to old American television show ‘The A Team’, which is still on telly in the Netherlands!) is a great play on words. And for the foreign audience, ‘eet’ means ‘eat’ and ironically sounds a lot like ‘ate’ in English.

If you have any other examples of good Dunglish use, send them in!

I was zapping at dinner and I heard sibilant English coming out of the telly on the children’s news (ZAPP TV), so I sat down and listened. The whole discussion was about having elementary school children learn English at that level instead of in secondary school, according to some government report. The people opposed to it believe that there are more important things to learn and that learning English in secondary school is faster and more efficient than in elementary school.

That last bit is not true for three reasons: 1) The level of English is already not so hot, which is the reason for being on telly in the first place (duh), 2) in my native Canada, they teach a second language (English or French) at elementary schools to produce as many functionally bilingual children as possible. They decided this back in the 70s or early 80s when they realised that learning at secondary level was too late, 3) It is a fact that any language should be put into a child’s head before age 7, as everything goes in easier.

In front of an entire classroom of children and a television camera, the male teacher said “Please take in front of you your book at page 39.” This Dutchman claimed that his English was good and that the children learned good English from him. Dude, this isn’t English! And then one of his students, a little blond boy was asked how he would address the baker in England when he goes there with his family on vacation. “Can I have a bread?” he said.

Did anyone pick up on the fact that this isn’t English? Anyone? Does anyone check or do they just assume they’re brilliant? It’s nuts.

Another telly channel (RTL4) also did the same piece blaming the teachers and spared us the Dunglish.

Knowing how underpaid teachers are, I wouldn’t expect any less than Dunglish.

Being an ‘early adapter’ (toes curling now) is one of those expressions that some English speakers can’t get right, but that many Dutch speakers keep using incorrectly over and over again. Before anyone goes all ‘everything’s relative’ on me, let me quote this wonderful saying: “If a million people do a stupid thing, it’s still a stupid thing to do”. And the truth is, if a Dutch text uses this expression in English, I tend to doubt the rest of what they are saying if they are that careless. It’s just a natural reflex.

Here’s a Dutch example of the failed vowel shift. You can search for “early adapter” on the Intertubes and get more people who have no clue what they are saying.

I’ve have enough of reading and hearing this mistake, so it’s time to get it straight once and for all.

“An “early adopter” (with an ‘o’!) is a person who quickly adopts something new, like a technological innovation or using a new bit of software. For example, the folks, including myself who were using Twitter more than a year ago, would be considered in the Netherlands “early adopters”.

There’s no such concept as an “early adapter”. If I had to make it up, it would be someone who adapted/redid/rewrote something first, but it’s usually someone who means “early adopter”.