Dunglish: why the Dutch make certain mistakes in English
Languages continue to evolve and mix. And Dutch and English are no exception to the rule. Mixing the two languages can lead to common errors, though. You can read more about the influence of English in Dutch texts in our blog ‘English is to blame’. But what about Dutch making its way into English texts? Keep reading to find out how the influence of the Dutch language leads to the following typical mistakes in English texts:
🦊 Mixed verb tenses
🦊 Incorrect use of the continuous form
🦊 Misplaced times and places in sentences
Mixed verb tenses
In Dutch there is no major difference between the sentence ‘Gisteren maaide ik het gras’ (‘Yesterday I mowed the grass’) and ‘Gisteren heb ik het gras gemaaid’ (‘Yesterday I have mowed the grass’). In English however, the present perfect cannot be used in the same sentence as the adverbial ‘yesterday’ because it indicates something that started and ended in the past. As you can see in the examples, the Dutch do in fact have different past tenses, but those tenses are often used interchangeably. Both the ‘onvoltooid verleden tijd’ and the ‘voltooid tegenwoordige tijd’ can be used to describe the fact that you mowed the grass yesterday, but in English, only the first is correct.
✅ ‘Yesterday, I mowed the lawn.’
❌ ‘Yesterday, I have mowed the lawn.’
Incorrect use of the continuous form
The Dutch would describe their job as an activity that one is actively doing. It keeps us busy during a large part of the week, after all. The English, however, focus on what the job is, rather than it being an “activity in progress”. That is why in English the present simple is used. That means only the first one of the examples below is correct, but a Dutch writer might use the second one as well.
✅ ‘I work as a technical writer.’
❌ ‘I am working as a technical writer.’
The opposite issue arises when someone wants to talk about how long they have been working in a certain role. Let’s take the same example and add the fact that you have been a technical translator for five years. In this case you would need the present perfect continuous where in Dutch a regular present simple in combination with ‘already’ can be used (‘Ik werk al vijf jaar als technisch schrijver’).
✅ ‘I have been working as a technical writer for five years.’
❌ ‘I work as a technical writer for five years already.’
Misplaced times and places in sentences
In the Dutch language, nuance can be placed on certain parts of the sentence by placing them at the beginning or the end of a sentence. This means that the Dutch have at least 4 ways to say that they drank a glass of lemonade in the garden yesterday. English is a bit stricter when it comes to the word order of a sentence. Adverbials for time and place can either be placed at the beginning of a sentence, or all the way at the end, and you have to write place before time. This means that while all examples below are correctly written in Dutch, only 1 of the literal translations forms a proper English sentence:
- ‘Ik dronk een glas limonade in de tuin gisteren.’
✅ ‘I drank a glass of lemonade in the garden yesterday.’
- ‘Gisteren dronk ik een glas limonade in de tuin.’
❌ ‘Yesterday I drank a glass of lemonade in the garden.’
- ‘In de tuin dronk ik gisteren een glas limonade.’
❌ ‘In the garden I drank yesterday a glass of lemonade.’
- ‘Ik dronk in de tuin gisteren een glas limonade.’
❌ ‘I drank in the garden yesterday a glass of lemonade.’
The only other correct way in English is to write both place and time all the way at the start of a sentence. That sentence construction would be wrong in Dutch, as there can only be one adverbial (e.g. ‘yesterday’) before the finite verb (e.g. ‘I drank’).
✅ ‘In the garden yesterday, I drank a glass of lemonade.’
❌ ‘In de tuin gisteren, dronk ik een glas lemonade.’
Is that all?
No, unfortunately a lot more can go wrong when the Dutch use English. Have you ever wondered why your Dutch colleague would tell you that you are very ‘slim’ instead of smart? Or why he must leave early to go pick up his daughter ‘of’ school? We’ll gladly tell you about it in a later blog.
🦊 Want to learn more about Dutch, English and/or technical writing? The Foxiz Academy is the place to be for inspiring workshops and training courses! You can check them out here.