Dunglish

Famous Dutch artist and writer Wim de Bie who originally wrote about Dunglish.nl when it first launched and also that English is sexier than Dutch will now sing some classic rock and roll for you, written with his partner in humour, Kees van Kooten.

Technically, this is NSFW, but only if you’re a prude who has no concept of context or dry humour (or fake ears).

The joke here is that there was a time when the Dutch were not as good with English as they are today, and many people had no clue what was being said. While the English lyrics are pretty straightforward and ‘Dunglishly’ on purpose, the Dutch subtitling tones the entire thing down to a puppy-clad greeting card. ‘I wanna fuck you’ roughly becomes (no pun intended and translated to match the music):

Oh, aren’t you pretty
Lying in the hay
Oh, aren’t you beautiful
I’ve no words to say

How much I like you, How much I like you…

I’m not on vacation, I’m just very busy because other people are away. Here are some previous Dunglish posts for those who may have missed these classics.

Original post and comments

This cafe in downtown Rotterdam is now closed. I still wonder if the cafe’s name had something to do with it. The word “show” is pronounced as in English, but the word “pain”, referring to “bread” in French, should be pronounced in French.

“The lunchroom with Mediterranean style”. Ouch!

How to be creative with Dunglish! I love it! The Dutch “v” is often pronounced as an “f”. Broken English indeed!

(Photo and tip: Bram)

I took the liberty of correcting the Dunglish entry on the Wikipedia website. By the way, a Dutch/Flemish person should submit an entry on “Nederengels”. The original article said that “Welcome in Amsterdam” (Welkom in Amsterdam) should be “Welcome to Holland”. Someone could also finish writing the original article.

Dunglish on Wikipedia before
Dunglish on Wikipedia now

This advertising campaign was a flop. The goal was to point out the negative effects of drinking to young people, apparently justifying the use of English. If you translate it back into Dutch (meer drinken, minder denken), it’s also wrong. You could argue that it was meant sarcastically, but a second poster was made depicting a guy with a big scar on his face from fighting. What about drinking and driving, becoming an alcoholic, being sick, missing work, waking up in a strange bed? So much for taking youth issues seriously.