Choking on moths

Another observation I am led to make, having listened to the people around me for a whole day, is that everything I've previously been informed about the Dutch language is complete pony. At least two three people I knew who spoke German assured me that it was a piece of cake to speak Dutch as it was just like German, but pronouced a bit funny. Well, it's not. The written languages bear an obvious similarity but the spoken tongues are a whole different ballgame. I reckon I can squeak by when attempting to understand simple written Dutch, but when surrounded by people speaking Dutch I have not the remotest idea what the hell anyone is saying. They could be discussing the Dutch version of Big Brother, the geo-political situation on the Indian subcontinent or the weather for all I know. It sounds nothing like German at all. If anything it sound like it might be from the same linguistic branch as Klingon.

In fact what it reminds me of most powerfully is a passage in Bill Bryson's second travel book, Neither Here Nor There, about his travels in Europe. When in the Netherlands and confronted with the same alien-sounding tongue I describe above, he repeats a tale from his days working on The Times in London, where he once asked a Dutch colleague whether the correct pronunciation was Van Gok or Van Go. His colleague said, "No, no. It's Vincent Van -" and proceeded to make a noise like a man choking on a moth, whereupon several people offered him a glass of water.

I'm willing to believe that Dutch is an easy language to learn if you already have German, which I do, but I'm unconvinced that my tonsils would forgive me anytime soon.