I need some charming / funny examples of mistakes made by native Dutch or French speakers whilst learning English.

October 3, 2006 5:26 AM

I need some charming / funny examples of mistakes made by native Dutch or French speakers whilst learning English.
posted by Black Spring to Writing & Language (24 answers total)

Why does it need to involve Dutch or French people? You can have fun with Germans as well. And even better if you are doing classes with Dutch and French: no-one will feel offended ;-)

'German Coast Guard' made us laugh repeatedly in a multi-national training course. Just google it or use youtube.
posted by cwittmann at 5:51 AM on October 3, 2006

Soesman Language institute . Commercial on Youtube. NSFW
posted by filmgeek at 5:57 AM on October 3, 2006

Oh, I have a book full of mistakes made by Dutch people. The book is called "I always get my sin" and is about mistakes Dutch people make when speaking English. Most of the phrases in the book are direct translations of Dutch expressions that just don't work in English, and it seems a lot of it is made up (or I just hope it is).
Some examples from the book that I think I've actually heard: "What for people do you need" ("What kind of people do you need"), "We're walking behind" ("We're behind (schedule)"), "How late is it?" ("What time is it?").

My Dutch friends also regularly make this mistake, which is also a result of translating word by word and disregarding difficult English grammar:
"We lived for four months in the US."
(Actually, friends that have lived in the US don't make this mistake. The example is taken out of context to protect the innocent!)
This type of mistake is REALLY common.
posted by easternblot at 5:58 AM on October 3, 2006

Not sure if this is what you're looking for, but I've had some Flemish speaking friends, and they were all confused by two common American greetings:

"yo", because to them it means something like "ok"
"what's up", I guess because it's rhetorical
posted by poppo at 6:07 AM on October 3, 2006

I don't know if it's charming or funny, but here is a very common mistake that French people make:

(In a restaurant, to the waiter:) "I'll take one Sushi Deluxe", because in French, we say "Je prendrai...".

I'll think of other mistakes when I have time. There are plenty!
posted by celine at 6:24 AM on October 3, 2006

(In a restaurant, to the waiter:) "I'll take one Sushi Deluxe", because in French, we say "Je prendrai...".

"I'll take" is normal for me for ordering food. "I'll take a large pepperoni and a box of hot wings."
posted by mendel at 6:49 AM on October 3, 2006

Commercial on Youtube. NSFW
posted by filmgeek

also (Youtube)
posted by lodev at 6:58 AM on October 3, 2006

I have a Dutch friend who speaks great English, but on occasion charmingly misprounounces a word or two. A recent favourite: pronouncing "long-winded" as "long-wynded"
posted by Robot Johnny at 7:18 AM on October 3, 2006

As easternblot said 'How late is it?' is a very common mistake and is, of course, absolutely correct in Dutch. One of my Dutch friends says 'It's very crowdy' intead of 'It's very crowded' but I'm not sure why. Lastly, and I've heard this countless times, many Dutch people get the word 'good' and the word 'well' mixed up (and for obvious reasons if you know Dutch). An example: 'I liked that band, they sounded very well.'
posted by ob at 7:42 AM on October 3, 2006

Does it have to be French or Dutch?
My Swedish boyfriend whose English is otherwise great, says these two every now and then:
"What clock is it?" (clock & time are the same in Swedish)
"Everyone are... " (everyone seems plural to him)

Plus the constant switching of y & j sounds in pronounciation...
posted by j at 8:15 AM on October 3, 2006

A common mistake for second language english speakers of Quebec is using the verb "borrow" in place of "lend" in most cases. Since in Quebec slang we only use the french word for "borrow", we don't make the distinction.
posted by PowerCat at 8:23 AM on October 3, 2006

French people sometimes use engaged when they mean commited. Or rendez-vous instead of appointment. Those words work in English, but have very different connotations in america.
posted by blue_beetle at 8:24 AM on October 3, 2006

Do you want pronunciation errors as well? A good (French) friend of mine used to say that she played turd on the curling team. She meant third of course.
posted by arcticwoman at 9:14 AM on October 3, 2006

"I'll take" is normal for me for ordering food.
Maybe with fast-food or take-out, but I doubt you would say "I'll take a filet mignon..."
posted by arcticwoman at 9:15 AM on October 3, 2006

A French friend would sometimes announce "I'm boring". She intended "I'm bored".
posted by MonkeySaltedNuts at 10:07 AM on October 3, 2006

I don't think this is prototypically Dutch, but a friend of mine once pointed at the gum eraser on my desk and said, "May I borrow your rubber?"

At which I grinned, and said that we called it an eraser; and that a "rubber" meant a condom.

She then pointed at my eraser and said, "May I borrow your condom?"
posted by Netzapper at 10:28 AM on October 3, 2006

A French friend of mine abrieviated associate researcher to "ass. researcher" on her resume and I giggled.
posted by dobie at 10:52 AM on October 3, 2006 [2 favorites]

I hear the phrase " 'take' a decision" as opposed to " 'make' a decision" a lot.

I've also noticed that I hear a lot of people use the word "learn" rather than "teach" ("Would you 'learn' me how to..."), but I would say that I've heard that from many ESL folks, not just Europeans.
posted by vignettist at 12:47 PM on October 3, 2006

'I liked that band, they sounded very well' is actually perfectly correct in English, although extremely poncy.
posted by londongeezer at 2:05 PM on October 3, 2006

My grandmother had an excellent grasp of English but consistantly ran afoul of the Aussie accent. Someone once said to her, "It's a nice day today," and she was aghast. "Someone died? How could that be nice? You people are strange!".
posted by ninazer0 at 3:22 PM on October 3, 2006

French speakers can have a (h)ard time with the letter h in English, so that you often (h)ear :

Eat instead of heat
Tree instead of three
And the classic turd instead of third.

On another note, for the longest time my sister thought english speakers were saying "cheese" when they said "Jeez".
posted by bluefrog at 4:56 PM on October 3, 2006

The "take a decision" is definitly spot-on. My partner still uses it, and at this point, he considers his English better than his native (Flemish) Dutch.

And Dutch speakers never 'pull your leg', but they certainly may 'play with your feet'.
posted by Goofyy at 4:10 AM on October 4, 2006

Response by poster: These are great, thanks a lot people. It's for a novel I'm writing, one of the characters is of French/Dutch extraction and I needed some authentic faux-pas.
posted by Black Spring at 8:39 AM on October 4, 2006

Not to rain on parades, but some of the mistakes above are just British English (which is probably what they learned, being European).

We "take" decisions. A "rubber" is what we call an eraser. Using single collective nouns with the plural of the verb is normal too, though not so much with "everyone". ("The committee are going to take a decision.")

And what's wrong with "We lived for four months in the US"?
posted by TrashyRambo at 7:49 PM on October 4, 2006