talkmagic.co.uk

We may know what we mean, but it's not always obvious to our overseas friends:

http://theanke.posterous.com/excellent- ... e-albertoa

That goes for Americans, too. The ones that live over here will vouch for this!

That is great!

*snort* I know most of the nuances, but there always remains the difference (especially in how direct someone is being). I usually accuse people of "being British about something." :p

Definite

Their is so much truth in that LOL

Madelon Hoedt wrote:*snort* I know most of the nuances, but there always remains the difference (especially in how direct someone is being). I usually accuse people of "being British about something." :p

It's weird, but you probably have better English than I do!

I wonder what ways the Dutch have to sound polite but mean something different?

Tomo wrote:I wonder what ways the Dutch have to sound polite but mean something different?

That's a tricky one... I don't think we have that many, to be honest, or at least none that I can think of off the top of my head. The reason being that many of the British expressions can be said in all seriousness, and simply mean something different. With each Dutch example I can think of, the true meaning will either be betrayed by the choice of words (such as "Dat is wel aardig", meaning "That's quite nice/quite alright"), or by aural or visual clues (intonation and facial expression).

Personally, I often find Dutch to be quite a coarse language, very blunt, and I am not capable of expressing the nuances I wish to make in my mother tongue. I guess we're not really that subtle a nation

Madelon Hoedt wrote:Personally, I often find Dutch to be quite a coarse language, very blunt, and I am not capable of expressing the nuances I wish to make in my mother tongue. I guess we're not really that subtle a nation

I think I noticed a certain bluntness in the translation you did for me last week. Well, from the interviewer anyway. Maybe he just didn't understand how cool a voorwerp is!

Tomo wrote:I think I noticed a certain bluntness in the translation you did for me last week. Well, from the interviewer anyway. Maybe he just didn't understand how cool a voorwerp is!

Lol! In the grander scheme of Dutch TV, that man should mostly be regarded as a cloud of gas himself...

Well, this explains a lot!
Now I understand ...