Great quiz! Got hung up on "nose horn". I was thinking of horn as an instrument and never came up with the answer. Definite facepalm moment when I saw the answer! ;)
Belgian or south of the netherlands? I have heard ziekenauto but mainly used by little kids, adults don't really use it (anymore?). But ziekenwagen sounds more unusual, I immediately hear it with a belgian or brabants/limburgs accent.
That's how I got all but this one. It was easy to think of the German word first, but since neither German nor English nor Dutch are my mother tongue thinking of the English word afterwards was a bigger challenge than usual.
Same for me, most of these are exactly the same in German, except for Piepschuim, which is such a wonderful word that I think I'll start using it from now on. Quiekschaum... I love it already.
Not really. Hippopotamus and rhinoceros have the same meaning in English, they just dont know it because it's greek to them. Earth apple is the same in french and other languages. Words book, tooth doctor, arithmetic machine I have also seen in other languages too.
This is because in The Netherlands butter is protected, it has to have at least 80% milkfat.
So instead of going for spread or something that would be more logical they went with cheese. Because the Dutch love cheese, eat cheese sanwiches, and there was alread another word with cheese in it but without cheese in the product (leverkaas/livercheese).
Brandweer is more accurately translated as "fire averting", from the noun brand and the verb weren, which makes a lot more sense considering the meaning. The others are indeed a little wacky though.
Yea but it is not really walking (as in hiking or stroling somewhere) either. It corresponds more to the English run, a machine runs, the engine runs things run smoothly. So basicly "going". So I would go for Sand runner. It works with time running out very well.
Lazy horse doesn't really work here, since it isn't really a dutch compound word, but just happens to translate to these two words. Luipaard has the same origin as the English word Leopard and comes from the latin compound word leopardus, meaning leo (=lion) and pardus (=panther).
Funnily enough, the greek word leopard originally referred to cheetahs, as they incorrectly thought cheetahs were leopards (which they called just pards) crossed with lions, thus "leo-pard".
Hahah that takes me back. I did the dutch duolingo for a while (I am dutch) to help people there and answer the questions in the comments and give corrections if I saw wildly wrong explanations. And just clarify some things.
Atm I am doing Danish. However since I redicovered this site aswell as having installed a new game, I just missed the last three days! haha Trading in one addiction for another..
I am a Dutch speaker (as my second-best language). I had thought that "Inktvis" could translate to "Octopus". But no, apparently "Achtarm" (liiterally "Eight arm") is correct for that animal.
And to be more fair I think most dutch people use the terms interchangeably, even though scientifically they definitely refer to two different things.
I think most people use inktvis for everything.
However if I am not mistaken
Inkvis=squid
Octopus= octopus
And cuttlefish=zeekat (sea cat) but pretty sure that is getting called inktvis too.
Edit, wait what?? rereading @FadKrashmor's comment. You think we call them achtarm??? I have never heard anyone call them that, I am pretty sure that must be a joke of someone. I can imagine it being called that in afrikaans. They have several words that are quite literal description (flemish has some too) well more than the ones we allready have, though every language does. People just dont realize it in their own language (sometiems partly because they use the latin or greek word)
for me, being dutch, it is actually an easy translation quiz but seeing the literal translation of these words to english makes me suddenly realise that some of our every day words are very funny :). I'd love to see similar quizzes in other languages!
Many of these are also same in Finnish (but "mustekala", literally 'ink fish' means octopussy). I believe that the logic of many Finnish compound words is borrowed from Swedish, they use native words but with similar combination (like "vuorenvarma" 'absolutely certain', literally 'mountain's certain', cf. Swedish "berg + säker").
In dutch leenvertaling though I think we simply use claque too. Unless I am mixing things up again ( thinking I have read something in dutch while it was in english). Which literally means borrow(ed) translation. Or yea loan translation like yours
i get kind of frustrated when people make fun of this bc a lot of english words are the same thing, just borrowed from dead languages. Like a hippopotamus is litterally 'horse river' and a dentist is just a 'tooth-er'. It's not just bc you don't remember, that english is any less silly lol.
I am Dutch I didnt get it either... Ofcourse I knew styrofoam, but absolutely could not think of it, I tried pack(ag)ing foam. And just checked, that is actually not wrong. So it should have been accepted.
Hmm now I am searching deeper, and it seems polystyrene is a better translation for piepschuim. But too much research atm.
OK did some more digging. The answer should be polystyrene. Styrofoam is extruded polystyrene foam, not squeaky (and actually a brand name, but lets disregard that), polystyrene is expanded polystyrene, very squeaky.
We only call the stuff that squeaks and seems to be made up of little balls piepschuim.
To be totally correct piepschuim=expanded polystyrene.
Not totally certain what we called extruded polystyrene but not piepschuim. (I think either styrofoam sometimes (cup) but when it is in sheets we might say polystyrene (I remember using those sheets for mock-ups in my study, think that is what we called it. Not getting confusing is it? :D)
Was a funny quiz to complete as a Dutch guy, but I never heard of the word 'ziekenauto', I always use ambulance.
As far as I know, everyone also just uses 'kussen' for pillow. But after googling I do see that stores sometimes specify 'hoofd kussen' maybe to make it clear that it is the pillow for sleeping.
Dutch guy here, mostly just checked it to see the comments about our language. xD Had 19 out of 20 myself.....for some reason the word ambulance had skipped my mind.
Cool quiz, nicely picked words. I have two remarks though. I word not translate -tuig with thing. I think apparatus, tool, or device is more accurate. (And you could argue tuig is not a word in this case, just a suffix. You do have the word tuig, but it either means scum/rabble/riffraff or like a harness for an animal. I imagine it can be a grey area, but noone says where is that tuig)
The other one was arithmetic machine, I would go for calculating machine. (Not calculus though). You would say let me calculate that, not let me arithmetic that. So calculating is better
literal translation - german - proper name
Sea dog - Seehund - harbour seal
Sea leopard - Seeleopard - leopard seal
Sea elephant - See-Elefant - elephant seal
And ofcourse we must not forget zeepaard (seahorse), zee-egel (sea hedgehog -> urchin). Ah And I think zeekoe (manatee)
Edit, we have a sealeopard too, but you don't hear it being used much.
1 point
So instead of going for spread or something that would be more logical they went with cheese. Because the Dutch love cheese, eat cheese sanwiches, and there was alread another word with cheese in it but without cheese in the product (leverkaas/livercheese).
This is because "apple" used to mean "fruit" in general terms. Thus, potatoes are "fruits of the ground".
Ik ben en sinaasappel
Atm I am doing Danish. However since I redicovered this site aswell as having installed a new game, I just missed the last three days! haha Trading in one addiction for another..
I think most people use inktvis for everything.
However if I am not mistaken
Inkvis=squid
Octopus= octopus
And cuttlefish=zeekat (sea cat) but pretty sure that is getting called inktvis too.
Edit, wait what?? rereading @FadKrashmor's comment. You think we call them achtarm??? I have never heard anyone call them that, I am pretty sure that must be a joke of someone. I can imagine it being called that in afrikaans. They have several words that are quite literal description (flemish has some too) well more than the ones we allready have, though every language does. People just dont realize it in their own language (sometiems partly because they use the latin or greek word)
Hmm now I am searching deeper, and it seems polystyrene is a better translation for piepschuim. But too much research atm.
OK did some more digging. The answer should be polystyrene. Styrofoam is extruded polystyrene foam, not squeaky (and actually a brand name, but lets disregard that), polystyrene is expanded polystyrene, very squeaky.
We only call the stuff that squeaks and seems to be made up of little balls piepschuim.
To be totally correct piepschuim=expanded polystyrene.
Not totally certain what we called extruded polystyrene but not piepschuim. (I think either styrofoam sometimes (cup) but when it is in sheets we might say polystyrene (I remember using those sheets for mock-ups in my study, think that is what we called it. Not getting confusing is it? :D)
As far as I know, everyone also just uses 'kussen' for pillow. But after googling I do see that stores sometimes specify 'hoofd kussen' maybe to make it clear that it is the pillow for sleeping.
The other one was arithmetic machine, I would go for calculating machine. (Not calculus though). You would say let me calculate that, not let me arithmetic that. So calculating is better
Native dutch speaker btw ;)