The weather and the words

Last Tuesday, December 11st, 2007, was the last day of Dutch lesson (level 1). A week before, mevrow Ria de Laat (our teacher) gave us a short article written by Kader Abdolah (a famous writer) entitle 'Het weer en het word'. It is a good and funny story about weather and Ducth languange. Up to now, my Dutch doesn't improve well. My daughter speaks Dutch better than I do.

The following is the translation. I didn't translate it by myself, but a software help me to do so. Afterwards, my colleague and friend at CBS, a Maroccan guy who speak Dutch fluently, corrected the translation. Dank u well, Jamal.

Happy reading...

The weather and the words
(Het weer en het word)
By: Kader Abdolah


You asked me last time if I would like to write to you about the Netherlands. Now everybody is happy with the proposed yearly government budget, I make some spaces and write you over two total different affairs: the weather and the Dutch language.
You still climb the mountains, I suppose. I do not. When I came here, I weared a pair training shoes. Seven and half year I walked continuously in the rain, in the cold and in the sun with the trims-group of the village, but every turn again I hesitate what I must pull on. A long training pants with jacket? Without jacket? An under sport shirt ? Thick? Thin? No, you do never learn it. It is somewhat peculiar. I listen to the weather report, go even outside to stand: Good weather. It does not blow. O.K., I pull a short pant on.'

I run to the work, but I see that everybody has a long training pants and a wind jacket. On the way it begins to blow a cold wind there. Once at home I go to bed.

I do not need to tell that if I wear a long training pants with training jacket, each then with a short pant on come days. Rarely, I do guess well. On a time that it a mass dark clouds in the air hung, I really didn’t know what I should do. Because: I did no longer want to race as the black sheep in the middle of the group. I went firstly outside and looked what the others put on. A trim mate runs along. He had on a training-pants and a training jacket.
‘Do you not run tonight?’ he mentioned. 'Yes of course. I directly wear my clothes.’
Well dressed I run to the trim. Everybody had good packed up same as I against the cold. Only as soon as the trainer whistled to begin, everybody pulled its warm-up suit out and began to walk in a short-pant. I didn’t. I could not. I had no short-pant under my training pants.
‘Have you not felt warm?' asked the trainer. 'No, of course not', I lied. ‘I am used to do it. I can against well.’

The hesitation that I have is not only with the weather, but also with the language. The Dutch language is also something unique in the language field. You must drink it with the breast milk; otherwise you never learn it perfectly. As a foreigner, you can go well shopping after single weeks. ‘May I have a kilo potato?' Then that get you well. Also you can read after a year with a Jip and Janneke dictionary. You understand the story, but you do not feel it totally.

If you live eight year in the Netherlands, you still always hold your words under the molars and you speak them with hesitation. You always fearful that you use a wrong article, that you set your stress on a wrong part. (That) you pronounce a long ij shortly. And a short o too long stretches. And yet, you always have problems with ‘ui’s and eu’s. I still can not pronounce well the word schreeuwen. Hollanders also have a difficult small word, the word 'er'. If you have thirteen 'er' -and, you can place them in six good (position), but with the rest, you remain sit. The Dutch language is the language of the Dutchmen. If you as disguise Dutchman, everybody knows that you do not have a short-pants under your training-pants as soon as you do open your mouth.