Es ist ein Kind

I watched a neat Sci-Fi film last night called Cargo. It's a German film and was just what I needed: not too deep, a bit hackneyed but overall well-made.

As it was in German I had to use subtitles (in French on this occasion given the constraints of Netflix!) and I was struck at one point by the proclamation by a protagonist of, "Es ist ein Kind!". What I thought of immediately of course was the similarity with Dutch: "Het is een kind".

I was initially tempted to read a link with English when you think that sometimes for 'k' in Dutch (or German) we can read with a 'ch' in English.

You can see this in words like cheese or church (Käse, Kaas / kerk, kirche) so I thought I saw a similar link with child->kind.

But no! Upon further investigation we see that child comes from the Proto-Germanic root of *kiltham meaning newly born, foetus or infant (also cognate with the Danish kuld meaning 'litter' or 'brood').

So what of 'kind' (as child) and its relation to children in English? Well, it seems we do retain some feel of this in English through kin (related to the family) or indeed kind (as in a sort or type of things). These stem from the Old English 'cynde' which originally meant the natural order of things and from which by extension we can see a link both with children and kin and 'a sort, type of something'.

Es ist ein Kind
Het is een kind
It is a child.

Unsurprisingly 'it' is very closely related to 'het' in Dutch. In fact in Old Frisian it was 'hit'. Etymonline.com points out the h in Old English was dropped due to it being in an unemphasised position.

Woord van de dag : eenvoudig

I've had today's word of the day rolling and lolling around my head for some time. It just seems so pleasant to say! Unfortunately it's not as simple to say as its meaning….

Eenvoudig (niet ingewikkeld)
means simple, straightforward (not complicated).

And if you are learning Dutch then here's a place you can go for 'eenvoudig Nederlands', taalblad.be

"TAALBLAD.BE is een e-zine met dagelijkse actualiteit, geschreven in het Nederlands, maar voor anderstaligen (that's me)".

Can't quite work out from the etymology if this word is made up of een (one), voud (fold) ig (y). Any ideas, please comment!

Woord van de dag: spoed

I love this word: 'spoed'.

It just sounds great! Don't forget though that this is pronounced more like 'oo' than in English 'oe'.

It's also quite relevant as we went past a hospital the other day and one of my children asked… what does 'spoed' mean? (It was written 'spoedgevallen' on the sign).

Spoed or spoedgevallendienst is in fact A&E or Casualty in English.

Definition thanks to http://www.vlaamswoordenboek.be/definities/term/spoedgevallen

"afdeling van een ziekenhuis waar men terecht kan voor dringende medische problemen"

A Dutch learner in Brussels' View

Here is an interesting article about one woman's attempts to learn Dutch in Brussels.

It's the same old problem unfortunately: nobody with whom to practice with some good old red-tape thrown in for good measure. Check it out here:

Clutch that Dutch
"Learning Dutch is proving much harder than I expected."

http://www.fansofflanders.be/Categories/Blogs/14_October_2013/04102013_Ana_Elisa_Miranda 

by Ana Elisa Miranda

Nick Clegg speaks Dutch (Fact)

Dutch online learning resource

Found a neat online language learning resource called Linguistadores which helps you study a language through news articles, videos and music. Its online quick reference dictionary and user defined flashcard system are very cool.

Currently it seems free and I can see very few drawbacks (if any!).

The company says this about itself' "We've built a platform which helps people achieve their ambitions by mastering a language in a way that is satisfying, relevant today, and customized to who they are today and who they want to be. Our technology and technological roadmap is focused on sewing the language learning process into the routines, activities, and pursuits of daily life in the form of genuine foreign language content (articles, music, and videos)."



Currently you can learn Dutch, English or Spanish

Alexander Arguelles presents Dutch