I took the bus this morning and decided to walk the mile home this afternoon to compensate for being lazy with the bus. It was a nice day and sometimes walking after class helps to clear my head (which is often angst ridden and cluttered with ambiguous Dutch phrases and vocabulary) and/or provides me the comfort of knowing that I’m burning off some of the malted milk balls CB and I scarfed at the movie theater last night while watching “There Will Be Blood”*.

Anyway, I was walking home, trying to review some of the latest vocabulary (there’s a shit-load this level and it’s hard and I can’t remember half of it) words in my head when suddenly I remembered a little incident that CB and I had a couple weeks ago that I forgot to tell you about. See, I promised to let you all read about any faux pas’ that I make here in Belgium and I don’t know if I have yet to deliver on that. I purposefully didn’t tell you about my botched understanding of the word “vrij” in Vlissingen (CB didn’t think it was very funny but after I told my parents and he told his I think he’s mistaken), nor (now that I think about it) did I tell you about the way I constantly screw up saying “you’re welcome”. The Vlissingen story is a post in itself, so I’ll save that for later, but I can definitely explain some of my other language mistakes thus far.

• One way to say “you’re welcome” in Dutch is “alsjeblieft” or “alstublieft” (depending on the level of formality you’re using). It also means “here you go” and “please”. One ends up saying and hearing it a lot over here, especially in places of service.

For example, a conversation in my favorite morning cafe might go:

Me: Een koffie alstublieft (a coffee please)

Waitress, bringing the coffee: Alstublieft (here you go)

Me: Dankuwel (thank you)

Me, paying the check: Bedankt (thanks)

Waiter: Alstublieft (your welcome)

Believe it or not, I used to be very proud of this interaction. Anyway, quite often during the first month or two, I began to say “you’re welcome” in English, stop myself and by that time the other person had moved on so I didn’t bother correcting what I said. It came out sounding like “yerwel-” and in Dutch I’d heard people say “jawel” so I figured it pretty much amounted to someone saying “thank you” to me and me replying with “yup”, which I do quite often in English. Then one day CB and I went to Aldi. A woman was carrying her baby and the baby dropped his pacifier on the ground. I picked it up and handed it to her so she said “dankuwel.” I started to say “yerwel-” and then stopped, realizing it was in English. The lady kept walking and CB said, “what’d you say?”

So I explained my frequent mistake and then said, “but it sounds like I’m saying ‘jawel’ so that’s still ok, right?”

CB chuckled, “yeah if you want to answer someone thanking you with ‘yes! that’s right!’”

Oy.

So basically every time someone thanked me and I stumbled on my words, I was responding to their thanks with a phrase that basically meant “yeah, you damn well better thank me!”

I really try to always say “alsjeblieft” now.

• The word “betekenis” in Dutch means “meaning”. As in, what is the meaning of that word or what does that symbol mean. The word “bedoelen” also means “meaning”. As in, what do you mean or what are your intentions. I knew they both meant “meaning”. CB and I were talking on the way home from somewhere and I was trying to clarify another word (”snappen” which means to understand/grasp…I know, I should have a glossary for this post, I’m sorry). I tried using it in a sentence to make sure I understood the correct use of “snappen”:

Me: So I would say, “ik snap wat je betekent” (I get what you mean)

CB: “Wat je bedoelt” (what you mean)

Me: Ja, ik snap what je betekent (I get what you mean)

CB: Wat je bedoelt (what you mean)

Me(getting frustrated now): Ik snap wat je betekent!(I get what you mean!)

CB: Wat je bedoelt (what you mean)

Me: I’m saying “I know what you mean”! Don’t you know what I mean??

CB: You have to use bedoelt, not betekent.

Me: Oh…so you knew what I meant, but I was using the wrong meaning of to mean.

CB: Yup.

Me: Siiiiigh

*I have totally been yelling I DRINK YOUR MILKSHAKE! since we left the theater last night.