Dutch 101: Lesson 3

Dutch Word of the Day!

It's time to start increasing our vocabulary -- this site has a lot of great resources as well as the standard word of the day via web or email: http://dwotd.web-log.nl/

Dutch 101: Lesson 2

"Yes but where can I speak Dutch other than The Netherlands?", I hear you ask. Well you can also speak it in Aruba, Belgium, Netherlands Antilles and Suriname.

I learnt how to say 'Bon appétit' (Enjoy your meal) at lunch today: Smakelijk eten! or Eet Smakelijk! I think it is pronounced along the lines of 'smakalerk'.

Plaats is the equivalent of place in road names and straat is street.

Meneer is Mr. and Mevrouw is Mrs -- often it will be abbriebiated Dhr and Mevr respectively and this is more often than not what you will see on forms, so for males choose the Dhr option.

Dutch 101: Lesson 1

Most people do indeed speak English in Amsterdam but there are still some times when people don't or when things aren't written with an English translation (not that we're complaining -- we're trying to learn Dutch -- we're just pointing this out). There are lots of dictionaries and translators out there so we'll try to concentrate on things that we've come across that are actually useful to know and often not mentioned in beginners courses that focus on things like numbers/days of the week etc.

So to begin with, shops/stores are called winkels -- this helps when looking for store locators on websites that are only in Dutch.

ATMs/Cash/Teller machines are usually called Geldautomaat or Bancomat.

Entrance is ingang and exit is uitgang, tickets are kaartjes.

The biggest supermarket chain is Albert Heijn, so you can always look out for the 'ah' blue logo (note the 'Winkels' link in the menu for finding your nearest shop).