Dunglish

While the city of Amsterdam is one of the most expensive cities in the world to park in, the money the city has collected surely never went to hiring one lousy translator to handle their English-language parking machines. Nope, they did it themselves and failed.

Hm, where to start? I picked three things, but there are more.
– Tariff = rate.
It’s not about importing bananas, it’s about the price of something.
– Sun- and Holidays.
No, no, no you cannot cut a word in half like that in English. Ever!
– Correct = correctly. English adverbs have different spelling. And their sentence is a big missing link. If you’ve entered your licence plate (two words!) number correctly, you can’t possibly have a ticket in your car until the machine prints one out and you go and place it ‘good readable behind your windscreen’.

Seriously Amsterdam, city of so many tourists, shame on you for this shite translation. Nobody tell me the city is saving money because they bleed car owners dry.

UPDATE: If you enter your licence plate number you don’t need a ticket in your car because often you do. That’s what this machine is trying to say.

They surely meant to spell ‘sale’, but unfortunately, the magic didn’t happen.

‘Uitverkoop’ is still a really long word, and everywhere you look, you’ll see ‘sale’.

My inside joke about ‘sael’ is cheap though: in old Dutch, many words were spelled with ‘ae’ and eventually ‘shortened’ to just an ‘a’, like with some streets names in Amsterdam were ironically richer people live.

(Thanks Piet!)

Another wonderful sign at Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport, the home of Dunglish.

First, I am sorry for not posting so much. Thanks for all the corrections, don’t get mad, just tell me, I can take it and I will correct it.

(And to the ‘person’ who voted for the Dutch extreme right party in the last election and thinks they are justified in threatening me here or anybody else, you’re just sad.)

Public transport posters are fun, especially after a night on the town. I won’t analyse it, it just needs some therapy.

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)

Come on, tell me this fast food chain doesn’t have the means or brains to translate things for tourists into English in Amsterdam, I dare you!

My friend spotted three mistakes although I can squeeze out more. I’m not going to mention them all, it takes the fun out of it.

1) No trading what? No “give me some fries and I’ll give you a big sip of my milkshake?” Seriously, I don’t get it. We covered the drugs already, right? Or was that just doing drugs?

2) …with or without reason? Unconscious? Brain dead?

3) If trouble… It’s that “You Tarzan, me Jane” Dunglish again. Someone call the Dunglish police!

(Photo: Laurent)

This is what I’m going to call a hat trick: this mess gets posted here, on Taalpuristen (the language purists) and if all goes well, SOS (the people who point out the bad use of spaces in Dutch words).

Although my foreign eye spotted some bad Dutch spelling, I’ll stick to what I know.

A few highlights

1) Fashion merk = fashion brand. Bastardize it!

2) ‘Biologische food and drinks’ (organic food and drinks). I often see ‘biologisch’ translated as ‘biological’ which is totally wrong. And the Dutch actually do have proper words for food and drink, contrary to popular belief.

I’m leaving the rest up for grabs, but I do have a question for my Dutch friends: can a fashion brand open its doors? A company can open its doors, but a brand?

And does it really matter given this mess?

(Photo: Martijn)

Here is some Dunglish advertising for shops in downtown Amsterdam on the Kalverstraat, that big long busy street with shops that repeat themselves like the animated background in The Flintstones. The ‘haert’ part is funny, because there’s this inside joke in Amsterdam that Dutch street names such as ‘Ruysdaelskade’, of which the ‘ae’ is an indication of old spelling, are expensive because of the ‘ae’ in the name. OK, it’s ‘ha ha’ funny.

‘Have your shoppingbreak’ (‘shopping break’) and relax and enjoy’ are too many things to do at once! But sloppiness is next to ‘I still get paid anyways’-ness.

(Tip: Branko)

It was funfair time again on Dam square in Amsterdam right in front of the Royal Palace that’s being renovated although it’s only used twice a year (squeeze local politics in here).

Free choice is a splendid thing and should never be implied lightly or without exclamation marks. The idea is you win and you can choose the prize you want. ‘Winning is free choice’ means nothing at all, besides sounding American or pro-abortion. The claim of being the world’s biggest mobile shooting range is also questionable simply due to the Dunglish, but that’s less important. Using Dunglish to save space on a big banner is probably more important.

The line-up at this Amsterdam “chip” stand is still legendary.

(Photo: Yuri)