Speaking in tongues

It's just over three years since I started this blog - and I recently went back to look at some early posts. One issue that hasn't changed in my life is the complexity of learning the Dutch language (although I hope my skills in this respect have improved). One early comment I got said: the Dutch CANNOT seem to understand their own language when it is spoken with a foreign accent! I remember trying to ask a couple of police officers where to find a good (cheap) rijstafel. I SWEAR I was pronouncing it correctly but it took several tries before they understood what I was saying and then said "Ohhh rijstafel!" in what I could have SWORN was the EXACT same pronunciation I had just used! I think this is especially funny for English speakers because we can almost always decipher what a non-native speaker is saying no matter HOW badly they massacre the language. Of course, in most cases, we have to.

I had the opposite happen to me recently. We had a big street party in Wageningen at the start of the month and some extra security at our flats to stop revellers using the stair well as a smoking den, unofficial toilet or worse. I stopped by in the evening to ask the concierge how the day had gone. He said fine but the lifts are full of gravity. Gravity. I pondered this for a moment. Its good that the lifts have some gravity, because otherwise we would float in them like astronauts in a space shuttle. But full of gravity - not so sure if I like the sound of that. Lifts are supposed to control gravity - not be mercilessly subject to its influence. Perhaps I'll take the stairs tonight. A few days later I forgot about the gravity problem, had some heavy shopping and took the lift and saw the walls were covered in graffiti. Ahh so that's what he meant!. I had had a 'Dutch' moment - when a misplaced constanant and a misplaced stress (the Dutch call it the klemtone) created a completely different word in my ears. I do this in the Dutch language all the time saying WaGENingen instead of WAGEningen and FAmily instead of faMILie. Though I now get those two right there are surely others that I don't. And I get looks of incomprehension. For once the boot was on the other foot.

Within a week the lift had been purged of all traces of unnecessary gravity - and this week we are having new one fitted - (planned before the gravity attack). This has been quite a seriously disruptive event as the hallway has been full of cables, workbenches and tools and it has been almost impossible get a bike in or out of the bike lockers. Still it'll be done soon and hopefully have just the right amount of gravity in it.