Doe de licht uit je.*
japra | Sep 23, 2009 | Comments 20
My life has been completely taken over by this Dutch course. I haven’t had a minute to spare since last Thursday! Each three hour class covers one chapter, which is taking me at least six hours to study. So basically, I am working full time on my Dutch and not accomplishing much else.
The plumbers came by on Monday to set the toilet, so at least our plumbing is done! Hurrah! But because I’ve been so busy, I’ve had to wait until today to clean up the rest of the cement dust (one final vacuum of a pound of dust, dusting and cleaning the walls, moping the floor, etc).
While I was cleaning the hallway this morning, I heard a knock on the door. Upon opening it, I found a guy on my doorstep, maybe in his late 60s.
Concerned older man: Doe de licht uit je. (Or at least this is what I think I heard)
Me: Sorry, do you speak English?
Concerned older man: Ja. Doe de licht uit je.
Me (starting to process what he was saying): Doe-de-licht-uit-je.
Concerned older man: Ja. Doe de licht uit je.
Me (in English): Oh, ja! Turn out the light. Well, I am cleaning and will turn it off after I am done.
Concerned older man (pointing to my light switch and probably thinking, ‘Man, is this woman dense’: Doe. de. licht. uit. je.
Me (starting to worry about this dude and really just wanting to get on with my cleaning because I have more studying to do): OK. (and turned off the switch)
Concerned older man: En nou de andere licht. (And now the other light–well, that’s what it sounded like anyway)
Me (getting a bit tired of this): Ok, ja ja, dank u wel! Tot ziens! (Ok, yes yes, thank you! Goodbye!)
And then I gently closed the door. I walked over to the hallway light switch to turn it off. Looking back at the door, I saw the Concerned Older Man pressed up against my door looking right in the little 4″ x 4″, eye-level peep window. I waved to him and he smiled at me.
Darn. I wish I had remembered to say “Dank u wel, MENEER!” (Thank you, sir.)
*I hope I got this right… I am guessing at the Dutch words.
Filed Under: Blog
About the Author: JaPRA is an expat Texan living in England with her husband (Mr. DJ), their 17-year old daughter (Roxi), and their dog Trudy.
Hi JaPRA!
You made me laugh with your little anecdote – that was funny!! I can imagine the whole scene, because, you know…. I’ve been there myself!! :o) SOmetimes you discover later that what the person was saying was soooo simple, and that you should’ve got it right from the start, but somehow there and then, it sounds like Martian, doesn’t it? :o)
I hope you’re enjoying your course!!
Cheers!
Isn’t that funny! Today in my class my instructor asked me to conjugate the verb (and this is what it sounded like to me): haan. And I was like–haan? It wasn’t until someone else was conjugating it that I realized it was *G*aan. DUH! One of the first verbs we worked with.
Sigh.
First of all, I’ve never seen so many vowels in a sentence in my life.
Second, I thought people were nosy/bossy in the South! Wow. It makes me want to go over my whole house turning all the lights on and leaving them on for the whole day. The next time that happens, you can tell the Old Dutch Man that for every light you turn off, one gets turned on in Florida.
You’re a hoot, Julia! I remember my parents telling me to turn off the light if I wasn’t using it when I was a kid… good advice, but I still find it kind of wierd that he knocked on the door to tell me.
well, everyone seems very resource conscious over there…bikes, light switches…it’s a good thing. I think you will ace this course, good student that you are, and it sounds like it can’t be too soon. Don’t envy you the cleaning up, yuk.
I agree about being resource conscious over here!
And thanks for the encouraging words about my class :-)
Aaaah. Dutch people. You have to love them. I think your spelling looks about right to me.
They are certainly a friendly and outgoing bunch! :-)
So, you had your lights on and he just couldn’t stand it? What? It is a waste of electricity I suppose to have them on during the day, but if you were using it for cleaning then it was serving a purpose! JAPRA – I am totally admiring your committment to learning Dutch! I am going to buy a Spanish course for the cimputer soon so I can brush up before visiting family in Costa Rica next summer.
Isn’t this funny? It just cracked me up. No one would dream of knocking on my door to tell me to turn off my lights back in Texas ;-)
Buena suerte on your Spanish course!! I envy your trip to Costa Rica. I have heard it is gorgeous there!
So you’ve gone back to school too. Good for you! The Dutch will be really useful. You are accomplishing a lot. Good to hear your plumbing issues are resolved. I love that bridge shot below – it really captures Amsterdam.
Yes, back to school! The homework is eating into my blogging time… luckily I’ll be done in two weeks!
I’m amazed that any of the Dutch sounds like discrete and discernible words to you already. But wow; that sounds like the CRASH course!
Gosh, it really is. I feel like I’m cramming every day! It will be a relief to have it over. I am glad to be doing it, but I will be happy to have some of my time back for doing things like laundry, and blogging (and blog surfing!)LOL ;-)
It is such a weird, disorienting, almost scary feeling to hear someone saying something in another language and have it just not compute! Especially if it’s a language you think you *should* be able to understand. Sometimes the brain just doesn’t cooperate.
You didn’t even have context to help–who would’ve thought he’d be that concerned about your lights?!
It really is, Kathy! A real “duh” moment. It takes me a little while to process what people are saying. Then to throw in speed and accent and I can really get lost!
That little man was so funny. I wonder what he would think about being the subject of my post ;-)
You’re studying Dutch??!! Wow. You have MY admiration. That sounds like one tough language.
Having studied French in high school and a couple of semesters of Spanish in University, I can say that Dutch is TOUGH! Some words are easy to figure out, but some of them, I absolutely have no clue. I have never been good with memorization, so this class has been really challenging for me. Plus my mouth just does not want to cooperate and make all the right sounds. LOL!
Oh my Lord! I’m so proud of you, learning Dutch aint that easy. You go girl :-)
Wat een nieuwsgierige opa???
XXX, Carmie.
Ja dat opa was a curious guy ;-)
If only I could get my brain, ears and mouth working in synch, that would help my Dutch greatly. Tee hee!