Things Seen in Holland
languages possess much that is in common, the pronunciations and the spellings are at variance. It is only the student who will notice the similarity between loopen and laufen (to run), and lepel and Löffel (a spoon), while English people must not too literally translate as the equivalents of words in their own language such words as tot, coster, baker, golf, pink, met, and blazer, for their Dutch signification is till or until, sexton, nurse, wave, sailing-smack, with, and blusterer, or blow-hard. These to give only a few illustrations. With regard to the matter of pronunciation, the Dutch g presents the same difficulty as to pronunciation as the Spanish letter j. An excellent exercise for those who wish to master this difficulty is to repeat the following line:
“Grietje, gooi geen goeje groente in de gracht”—i.e., “Maggie, do not throw any
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