Lekker makkelijk

Lekker is one of my favorite Dutch words. It describes a feeling, a sense and can be used in a great variety of ways: “Hoe ging de tentamen? Lekker makkelijk!” (How was the exam? Pretty easy!). It can also be applied to physical objects: on my first visit to Holland, a kid on a bike passed me and my girlfriend and shouted to her: “Hey, lekker ding!“, which she later translated to me as, “Hey, nice piece of ass!” It sounds less rude in Dutch, but still, I wouldn’t start greeting my lecturers that way. Speaking of greetings, there are many ways to greet people in Dutch, like “Hey, mooie jongen! Hoe is ie?”, which roughly translates to “Hey, my good man! Wassup?”- though you have to say it in a particular way. Another greeting that demands a special pronunciation is “Hey, lul!“ accent on ‘lul‘, which translates as “Hey, asshole!”, and which should be answered with, “Heb jij gezegd dat ik een lul ben?” – accent on ‘jij‘ and ‘lul‘ . and means, “Did you just call me an asshole?”, which ideally should be said with an exaggerated Amsterdam accent. This last one comes from a TV show called ‘Jiskefet’ (meaning ‘trash’ in Friesian), which by the way is an excellent source of good Dutch slang. [Disclaimer: The author is not responsible for the consequences of the use of the words and phrases listed above.]

Michael Afanasyev, from Israel, is an Aerospace Engineering student.

www.botsjeh.cistron.nl/dutch/main.htm

Lekker makkelijk

Every language has its charm, and one of the fun things when learning a new language is discovering its gems . those seemingly common words and expressions that upon any attempt to translate inevitably causes them to lose that special sound, the semantic connection that makes them so special in the original language. Lekker is one of my favorite Dutch words. It describes a feeling, a sense and can be used in a great variety of ways: “Hoe ging de tentamen? Lekker makkelijk!” (How was the exam? Pretty easy!). It can also be applied to physical objects: on my first visit to Holland, a kid on a bike passed me and my girlfriend and shouted to her: “Hey, lekker ding!“, which she later translated to me as, “Hey, nice piece of ass!” It sounds less rude in Dutch, but still, I wouldn’t start greeting my lecturers that way. Speaking of greetings, there are many ways to greet people in Dutch, like “Hey, mooie jongen! Hoe is ie?”, which roughly translates to “Hey, my good man! Wassup?”- though you have to say it in a particular way. Another greeting that demands a special pronunciation is “Hey, lul!“ accent on ‘lul‘, which translates as “Hey, asshole!”, and which should be answered with, “Heb jij gezegd dat ik een lul ben?” – accent on ‘jij‘ and ‘lul‘ . and means, “Did you just call me an asshole?”, which ideally should be said with an exaggerated Amsterdam accent. This last one comes from a TV show called ‘Jiskefet’ (meaning ‘trash’ in Friesian), which by the way is an excellent source of good Dutch slang. [Disclaimer: The author is not responsible for the consequences of the use of the words and phrases listed above.]

Michael Afanasyev, from Israel, is an Aerospace Engineering student.

www.botsjeh.cistron.nl/dutch/main.htm