by Alice Rush
I TRIED learning Dutch by taking quite a few Duolingo classes online. It isn’t something easily learned without being immersed in it. Duo the owl, just didn’t hold my attention long enough either. Come to think of it, of the few animal names that I learned, I don’t think uil was one of them. Odd since Duo the owl is their logo. Using that program, I remember learning schildpad though, which I thought was kind of cute. In learning any words, I try to use little memory tricks to retain what I’ve learned, so a turtle is a “shield-pod”. A pod animal that has a shield.
My second visit to the Netherlands was very close to Christmas. So, among the first animal names I learned were frogs and mice, because of Kikkers and Muizen during Sinterklaas. The mice I can understand during the holiday, since they figure in many children’s stories, including Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker. Frogs though, I do not know how they factor into Sinterklaas. Frogs are sound asleep during the winter. My memory trick works great though. Frogs kick in order to jump, so kicker, kikker. I love that, and Kikkers and Muizen are one of my favorite seasonal Dutch candies.
Learning that a deer was a hert gave me a laugh. That’s another easy one, since a deer can really “hurt” your car. My only first-hand run-in with a deer happened here in Maine 2 years ago. Luckily the car was not too badly HURT by the hert, and insurance covered it. I think the deer ran off barely injured as well. They are beautiful even though they are dangerous on the roads. Seeing entire herds of herts up close in Laren was very special.
On another visit with friends, we walked through an area where there were caged racoons. When my Dutch friend called them wasbeer, I laughed out loud and asked her to repeat it a couple of times. Adorable. It sticks in my mind as “was bear”. It WAS a bear, but it shrunk. Apparently it also picked up a mask somewhere. When I see images of them rummaging through garbage cans, that’s what I see, a “was bear”.
The one that is still the funniest for me though is squirrel. The word in English is kind of cute already. It’s especially cute to hear a Dutch person pronounce squirrel. When I see them in my mind, usually the first images are of little fuzzy rodents eating nuts, mostly acorns. So when I found out a squirrel was an eekhoorn, I giggled every time I heard it for a while. It still makes me smile. Eekhoorns eat acorns.
Maybe I’ll revisit Duolingo, see if the uil can “oil up” the gears in my brain for more Dutch vocabulary.
* Alice is a Maine realtor and a licensed helicopter and fixed wing pilot. She first met her Dutch husband in Maryland in 2005, and married him four years later.
