Ask a Dutchman!

[Hygro]

Nijmegen also pronounced

Nigh megan (as in the name, rhyming with ronald reagan)
Nigh maysh uh
Nigh maych uh (with the ch being like loch ness aka "the arabic H" as one guy called it)

regional accents, yo ;D

 

[householder]

I have not read through this entire discussion thread, so please excuse me if my questions have been asked before.

Spain essentially became a country when Isabel I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon united in marriage. The Netherlands was a Spanish province which became a country when it successfully rebelled against Spain. Could the Netherlands and Spain reunite if their monarchs were to marry?

Obviously it could not happen soon. The heir-apparent of the Netherlands is a young girl. And the future monarch of Spain (once her grandfather steps down, and her father then relinquishes the throne) is also a young girl. So a traditional marriage is unlikely in the foreseeable future.

However, both countries allow same-sex marriage. If the Princess of Orange, and the Infanta Leonor of Spain were to marry, would that also allow the Netherlands to reunite with Spain?

 

[peter grimes]

Of course, those are approximates. My fear is that the actual Dutch pronunciation is impossible to learn if Dutch isn't your native language.

A friend of mine spent an exchange year in a Dutch village after high school. He learned dutch and described it as a german trying to speak english, but underwater

I spent a year in Portugal, and I can assure you that it's perfectly intelligible - the pronunciation was very easy for me to pick up. Not as easy as Italian, but certainly easier than French. For me, at least.

Spain essentially became a country when Isabel I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon united in marriage. The Netherlands was a Spanish province which became a country when it successfully rebelled against Spain.

Holy cow! I never knew that. How did that happen??

 

[Hygro]

A friend of mine spent an exchange year in a Dutch village after high school. He learned dutch and described it as a german trying to speak english, but underwater

I've heard it described as English spoken backward.

It's a real mixed (set of) accent(s). It's a bit of everything. Part_Time_Civver sounds like he's from Minnesota, which is not uncommon.

It's like American English accent with a Scottish lilt on an Italian inflection with a French vibe with German words spoken arranged Pirate Shakespearean English Grammar all spoken with this underlying eagerness. Some girls carry a kind of Japanese twang to it, too.

I love it. It's nearly the hardest accent for me to imitate and it's really one of my all time favorites. Y'all make fun of the harshness of the g/ch but that sound, coming at it from a music producer standpoint, actually contextualizes the sounds around it in a pretty way.

 

[Tahuti]

Nigh megan (as in the name, rhyming with ronald reagan)
Nigh maysh uh
Nigh maych uh (with the ch being like loch ness aka "the arabic H" as one guy called it)

Nijmegen is always supposed to rhyme with Ronald Reagan, but the 'g' is always pronounced like an Arabic 'H'. Southern Dutch and Flemish people however may pronounce the 'g' as a Russian 'kh', which is fine, but makes you identifiable as a papist traitor.

It's a real mixed (set of) accent(s). It's a bit of everything. Part_Time_Civver sounds like he's from Minnesota, which is not uncommon.

I wonder what you think is the closest American accent when I speak English.

 

[dutchfire]

Nijmegen is always supposed to rhyme with Ronald Reagan, but the 'g' is always pronounced like an Arabic 'H'. Southern Dutch and Flemish people however may pronounce the 'g' as a Russian 'kh', which is fine, but makes you identifiable as a papist traitor.

Let the record show that the Papists still have firm control over Nijmegen.


The -en at the end of a word often becomes more of a -uh in spoken language, due to laziness.

 

[Tahuti]

The -en at the end of a word often becomes more of a -uh in spoken language, due to laziness.

That sounds horribly like somone who comments on GeenStijl would do!

 

[peter grimes]

I wonder what you think is the closest American accent when I speak English.

Post a sample and I'm sure we'll have an opinion

 

[Tahuti]

Post a sample and I'm sure we'll have an opinion

For the record, Hygro and I have met in real-life.

 

[Jan H]

Holy cow! I never knew that. How did that happen??

When Charles V of Habsburg became Duke of Burgundy, King of Spain, Archduke of Austria and Holy Roman Emperor all at once
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_V,_Holy_Roman_Emperor

The Low Countries (most of current Belgium, Netherlands and Luxemburg) were ruled by the Burgundians at that time. Charles was even born in Ghent

Later on the Low Countries rebelled against the Spanish. The Southern part was reconquered and became the "Spanish Netherlands" (later Austrian Netherlands and finally Belgium), while the North became independent as the "United Provinces"

 

[Takhisis]

Holland, Luxembourg, Artois and the French-Comté. That was Charles I's inheritance from his father.

 

[dutchfire]

A new book on 19th century history has revealed that King William II introduced the first democratic constitution because he was secretly gay and was being blackmailed about this fact by pro-democracy elements.
Typically Dutch?

 

[Tahuti]

A new book on 19th century history has revealed that King William II introduced the first democratic constitution because he was secretly gay and was being blackmailed about this fact by pro-democracy elements.
Typically Dutch?

I think so.

Pim Fortuyn was gay and reactionary as well.

 

[Takhisis]

Is the book a credible source?

 

[The_J]

I know it has to be somewhere in my documents, but can't find it right now: How much of my left over holiday will be automatically transferred to the next year?
(I assume that's regulated by law, and not by the employer)

 

[dutchfire]

This is probably decided not by law or by the employer but by the CAO, the collective agreement between the companies in your business and the unions.
It would be best to ask the local personnel department, because these rules are usually complicated.

 

[The_J]

In that case I'll first dig into my documents.
But thanks .

 

[Agent327]

A new book on 19th century history has revealed that King William II introduced the first democratic constitution because he was secretly gay and was being blackmailed about this fact by pro-democracy elements.
Typically Dutch?

Your summary is typically Dutch maybe. What was revealed, was that the blackmail played a part. It wasn't the only factor, and thereafter the king repeatedly tried to manipulate different cabinets (there was plenty of room to do so), but parliamentary supremacy remained in place. By the way, the 1848 constitution wasn't a democratic institution - not by a long shot. It was a liberal constitution which left room for democratization, which eventually was implemented early 20th century.

 

[Ajidica]

How representative of Dutch police officers is this?

Link to video.

 

[Agent327]

The only thing Dutch in that vid is the car. Meaning, it could be a Dutch police car.