I was talking before about the first time I came to Netherlands. That happened in august 2008. There are a lot of things that struck me about the country as well as about the people but the thing that shocked me the most was the language. Romanian is a latin language with some influences but it is quite melodic. Hearing dutch for the first time I was completely surprised by the apparent lack of vowels and by the way they pronounce the G. To me it sounded like everyone was affected by a constant flu and they had to clear their throats every two words.
I was convinced that the weird sound I was hearing was H. It couldn’t have been otherwise. But then…where’s the G? Do they have no G in dutch? It all cleared out when I saw some written words. Well not so much as cleared out but more like “oh gosh, that’s a mouthfull!”.
I was pretty damn excited to be here so I really wanted to learn some words. Which would be better suited than “good morning”, right? Well in dutch you say “goedemorgen”.
That’s 2 G’s in one breath. Not as easy as it sounds. After practising for a good 10 minutes I had such a sore throat that I figured that saying a full sentence would probably, most surely, kill me.
From about 2008 till well, july, I believe. 2010 I had been practising my G with fierce determination. In februari 2010 I started a dutch language course. What can I say, I have never had so much honey to cure my throat as I had in that period.
Then in july, while at a party with some friends I was talking to one of them about the school, language and how I am handling it. Of course I started complaining about the G. In the end, in my little world, this was a serios problem. And then she asked me, very surprised: “Why does your throat hurt?”
I was confused to say the least. What should have hurt instead? My pincky?
When the cloud of confusion wore of I found out that in fact that terrible sound is made at the back of the tongue. Really? I had been living here for 1 year and no one figured to ask me why I complain about the G and the sore throat all in the same sentence?
I was so excited, it seemed that all my problems with the language were over. I ran to my boyfriend to tell him what new discovery just fell into my lap. Obviously, he was surprised I was surprised. What do I mean I didn’t know? I am doing it from my throat? That hurts!
No shit, Sherlock!
Here's some dutch music for you. It has some subtitles so you can play spot the G. :))
Scheveningen, Scheveningen, Scheveningen!!
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