What does Dutch sound like to you?

**The Lawspeaker** · 03-21-2019, 07:49 PM

Originally Posted by Stijn de Vries

eigen haard is goud waard

En zo is't maar net !

**Westbrook** · 03-21-2019, 07:54 PM

When I was younger I had a gf from a Dutch family and I always joked that Dutch sounds like retarded German. I was so mean back then, but she tolerated me for some reason.

Originally Posted by Aśvārohī

I like the Dutch a lot, but the language just sounds awful. sorry. it's like Neanderthal language (and it may even be! I mean the throat sounds could be inherited from ancestral CroMagnons of Western Europe)

**Nurzat** · 03-21-2019, 08:22 PM

Originally Posted by Westbrook

When I was younger I had a gf from a Dutch family and I always joked that Dutch sounds like retarded German. I was so mean back then, but she tolerated me for some reason.

wow, you dated a Dutch girl - they have many goddesses. lucky dude! anyway, men should not 'date' women, but marry!

**Westbrook** · 03-21-2019, 09:27 PM

That's too many marriages and divorces to deal with

Originally Posted by Aśvārohī

wow, you dated a Dutch girl - they have many goddesses. lucky dude! anyway, men should not 'date' women, but marry!

**Roy** · 03-23-2019, 07:43 AM

Cough, cough, cough - it must be /ɣ/ consonant responsible for that and pretty similar to English in some other aspects actually. It's not too bad though compared to German - I mean how it does sound. German is like the Black Speech of Mordor to my ears.

**~~Kamal900~~** · 03-23-2019, 07:45 AM

Kinda sounds Frisian and Old English.

**~~Swarthy_Syndicate~~** · 04-22-2021, 05:24 PM

Dutch is what I imagine German sounded like in its infancy

**Eleonor** · 04-22-2021, 05:50 PM

Even Belgian French has that Dutch sounding accent. It sounds rattled, stuttered yet oddly satisfying to hear.

**PlattitüdenPaule** · 04-22-2021, 06:01 PM

For a native german speaker its not that hard to understand dutch, even in fast spoken form. It just sounds like an older form of german to me; could easily pass as a dialect. (It's easier to understand than some german dialects actualy.)
All in all love the dutch language. Sometimes its even quite funny and quirky like iE Hondenpoepzakje.

**Dandelion** · 04-22-2021, 06:16 PM

Originally Posted by Eleonor

Even Belgian French has that Dutch sounding accent. It sounds rattled, stuttered yet oddly satisfying to hear.

That's true. Belgian French is also full of loans from us. There even exist Belgian expressions shared by Belgian Dutch and Belgian French. Like 'avoir un œuf à peler avec qqn'/'met iemand een eitje te pellen hebben' (to have something to settle with someone) or 'non, peut-être'/'neen, zeker' (affirmatively).

Also an expression used in General Dutch 'sucer qqch de son pouce'/'iets uit zijn duim zuigen' (to make something up).

Also many loanwords like kot, tof (from Amsterdam slang, from Yiddish taken over by Flemish and later Francophone Belgians), babeler (FR)/babbelen (NL, also in the Netherlands), etc...

I guess this makes sense if you shared a country for so long and many Francophone Belgians descend from Dutch-speakers to boot. Even post-Belgium (hypothetically) it might remain a memory from it.

A good channel an Belgian French:
https://www.youtube.com/c/LaMinuteBelge/videos

The Brabançonne is a tad intrusive, but it's a great channel. They do exaggerate the linguistic differences between Belgian French and French from France. A dialectally-speaking Belgian boomer from Brussels versus a pompously-speaking Parisian from the upper class.