Language Confusion - you think you know what it means but you don't

I know that I’ve mentioned language difficulties a few times, but I think it deserves a bit more attention. Nearly everyone in the Netherlands speaks English – probably better than a lot of Americans – but they speak British English, not American. This leaves a lot of room for confusion!

The one thing I have still not gotten used to is what floor I work on. I insist that I’m on the third floor. Everyone in Europe thinks I’m on the second floor. They begin counting with the ground floor, or floor zero. In the US, the ground floor is one.

The next troublesome point is the time – and this one is double-trouble. In the Netherlands they say half nine to mean 8:30. But when the British say half nine, they mean 9:30. In the US, we just say what we mean. I always have to confirm what time they really mean.

Numbers in general are difficult to translate between Dutch and English. In Dutch, they say the numbers backwards so 46 is said six and forty (of course, the numbers are said in Dutch). The Dutch suddenly become terribly dyslexic when translating numbers to English and many will translate six and forty to 64. I see it all the time on the TV subtitles, too. With money, you often get twice the confusion. Your total is 65.94 becomes five and sixty, four and ninety. My mind can’t translate the numbers and turn them around quite that fast, so I just look at the register for the amount or I mindlessly use my PIN card.

British people go on holiday, while Americans go on vacation. What we would call a holiday in the US, is known as a public holiday. Dutch people go on vacantie, but translate it as holiday.

I think the British got in too much trouble for their funny pronunciation of the word schedule so now they ask you to check your diary. I personally haven’t had a diary since I was 16 (unless you count this blog, of course). I chuckle every time I’m asked about my diary.

Children’s games are especially fun. I found out that Tic Tac Toe is called naughts and crosses in England. In Dutch, it’s called botter, kaas, and eiren (butter, cheese, and eggs). While I was in the B-section of the Dutch-English dictionary, I noticed that botterham trommel is Dutch for lunch box. Sandwich bags are called botterham zakjes. It seems that everything having to do with sandwiches is called botterham because they eat so many ham sandwiches with butter. And the Dutch favorite hagelslag (literally hail), translates to tens and thousands in British, but in American we just call them chocolate sprinkles.

I was impressed to learn that a backpack in Dutch is called a rugzak. Rug is the word for back and zak is a bag. In England, they call a backpack a rucksack – interesting how similar these words are.

You have to be careful at the market and know that an ounce in the Netherlands is 100g. For the non-cooks out there, an American ounce is about 30g and there are 16 oz in a pound. So if you order 8 ounces of fish here, you’ll be getting close to 2 lbs rather than half a pound! That could be an expensive problem. If you ask for a pound of something here, you will get 500g which is remarkably close to an American pound.

The British people that we went skiing with kept talking about one of the guys who lost 2 stones and looked really good. I had to ask the question, “What’s a stone?” Yes, it sounded pretty dumb when I asked it, too. A stone is 14 pounds. Damn the British for coming up with such stupid measurements!

By the way, I also had to ask, “What’s a quid?” It’s actually the language equivalent of a buck, so a quid is one pound (no, not the weight, the money!). And of course we haven’t even talked about lorries, lifts, trollies, and wellies.