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Heddwen Newton - English & Dutch @heddwen.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

Zo jammer! Maar door de geruchten ben ik wel Anjet Daanje gaan lezen, en waarschijnlijk anderen met mij. Klein lichtpuntje?

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Heddwen Newton - English & Dutch @heddwen.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

Should be fixed, now. Thank you so much for letting me know! I had no idea!

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Heddwen Newton - English & Dutch @heddwen.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

Yep, the site has been compromised. Thank you so much for letting me know, I'm trying to fix it right now.

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Heddwen Newton - English & Dutch @heddwen.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

Oh, thank you for letting me know! Yes, the website should be up and running. I'll look into it!

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Heddwen Newton - English & Dutch @heddwen.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

They mean different things. "I would rather my kids" = ik zou liever willen dat ze piano leren. "I would rather have my kids" = ik zou ze liever naar pianoles sturen. The have is like the one in "Can you have that man call me"

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Heddwen Newton - English & Dutch @heddwen.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

"Would rather" is a verb pattern; "rather" in this kind of sentence always combines with "would", so you are right, it does behave like a verb.

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Heddwen Newton - English & Dutch @heddwen.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

I've been there! It's a great idea to mention it on the website, thanks 😊

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Heddwen Newton - English & Dutch @heddwen.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

It was a surprise to me, too! The modern German word for harvest, "Ernte", is related to "to earn". "To labour for a reward; to reap"

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Heddwen Newton - English & Dutch @heddwen.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

Well, well, well.... Today I learned! forum.wordreference.com/threads/back...

forum.wordreference.com

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Heddwen Newton - English & Dutch @heddwen.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

Absolutely nothing about "backend" in this meaning in the Oxford Dictionary, I'm afraid. Could it have been spelled differently? Or it's from another language?

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Heddwen Newton - English & Dutch @heddwen.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

Dutch-speakers apparently also got confused, but instead of giving the season a new name, they chose a new word for "harvest". The current word, "oogst", comes from the month of august, when the harvest begins. (3/3)

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Heddwen Newton - English & Dutch @heddwen.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

From about 1500 it got so confusing that some English-speakers started using the French word "automne". Some others started calling it "fall" because the leaves were falling down (yes, really). (2/3)

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Heddwen Newton - English & Dutch @heddwen.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

A language fact for the beginning of autumn: The Dutch word "herfst" is directly related to the English word "harvest". In Old English, the season was called "hærfest"; "the time of gathering crops". Slowly, the crop-gathering meaning overtook the season-meaning. (1/3)

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Heddwen Newton - English & Dutch @heddwen.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

Dutch speakers have negative feelings about Dutch books, because they were made to read classics at school. Quote "Dutch books are always about WWII or about sex." English books don't have these negative feelings attached to them.

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Heddwen Newton - English & Dutch @heddwen.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

Booktok is making reading more popular. Influencers talk about the English versions of the books, of course, and it is also often simply the case that the book becomes popular before the translation is out. And many books never get translated into Dutch at all, esp. in the fantasy genre.

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Heddwen Newton - English & Dutch @heddwen.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

As Dutch speakers read English just as easily as Dutch, they prefer to read the book in the language it was written, rather than in translation.

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Heddwen Newton - English & Dutch @heddwen.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

Most Dutch speakers have no problems reading English, and many think English "sounds better", especially for the fantasy genre.

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Heddwen Newton - English & Dutch @heddwen.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

A Dutch law, meant to protect authors, that means books can only be sold for a fixed price. The catch is that the law is only for Dutch books, meaning English books are often cheaper.

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Heddwen Newton - English & Dutch @heddwen.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

In the Netherlands, demand for English-language books is growing steadily, with ten new English-only book shops opening in the last four years. Some reasons for this:

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Heddwen Newton - English & Dutch @heddwen.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

Turns out there's a whole organisation in NL that tries to find good homes for historically important artifacts that nobody seems to want. W.F. Hermans' typewriters can now be seen in a mini-museum in a bookstore in Ghent, Belgium. They got them for cheap, in exchange for putting them on display.

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Heddwen Newton - English & Dutch @heddwen.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

W.F. Hermans, a Dutch author who is considered one of the "big three" post WWII authors, would have been 105 years old today. Reading up on him, I fell into a rabbit hole of what happened to his typewriters. They were in a museum for a bit, but it went bankrupt, and then nobody wanted them.

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Heddwen Newton - English & Dutch @heddwen.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

Zonder die vertaling eronder had ik er echt niets van begrepen. (En ik dacht dat er "Lets" stond, ipv "iets")

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Heddwen Newton - English & Dutch @heddwen.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

Heard in a podcast: Asking “what is the hardest language to learn?” is like asking “what is the farthest town?”

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Heddwen Newton - English & Dutch @heddwen.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

Jaaaa, dat is m. Ze hebben de u ondersteboven en op de verkeerde plek teruggehangen, denk ik.

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Heddwen Newton - English & Dutch @heddwen.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

Ik snap niet wat er oorspronkelijk tussen "de eerste stap die" en "voordat" stond en ik wil het zo graag weten.

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Heddwen Newton - English & Dutch @heddwen.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

Yeah, I should have put my brain on before just typing the first date I found.

Wat maakt de Schatkamer uniek?
De grote collectie radio- en tv-programma's maakt de Schatkamer uniek. We gaan ver terug in de tijd (vanaf 1877) met veel bekende en onbekende programma's en series. De Schatkamer is reclamevrij en gratis, en is er voor iedereen.

From https://schatkamer.beeldengeluid.nl/veelgestelde-vragen

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Heddwen Newton - English & Dutch @heddwen.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

Update: I promise I got the 1877 from the website itself, I didn't make it up. But looking at the archive, it doesn't go further back than 1890, which makes sense.

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Heddwen Newton - English & Dutch @heddwen.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

A Dutch archiving institute has put thousands of Dutch TV programmes online dating from 1877 to the 2010s. Surprisingly, some of the most popular programmes are language courses from the 1960s, 70s and 80s. For example this charming BBC series to learn English.

youtube.com

1963: Learn English with WALTER and CONNIE | English By Television | BBC Archive

YouTube video by BBC Archive

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Heddwen Newton - English & Dutch @heddwen.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

Ah, kijk, het was me al opgevallen dat die kaartjes de laatste tijd een veel betere wetenschappelijke basis leken te hebben; dat hebben we dus aan jou te danken :-)

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Heddwen Newton - English & Dutch @heddwen.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

Yes, that is expensive. Perhaps with this new agreement things will get a little better?

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Heddwen Newton - English & Dutch @heddwen.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

Dutch universities can keep teaching in English if they choose, but they need to invest in measures to entice the international students to stay in the Netherlands after graduation, e.g. investing in Dutch language courses and better preparing students for the Dutch labour market.

dub.uu.nl

Agreements concerning international students are now official

In mid-July, higher education institutions signed an administrative agreement with Minister of Education Rianne Letschert on the intake of international students. This means that "self-governance" wil...

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Heddwen Newton - English & Dutch @heddwen.bsky.social · 23/08/2026

My latest newsletter has had the most likes of any of them until now, and I'm not actually sure why. Is it because of the extremely stupid joke at the end? Because it is shorter than usual? Or because I call my readers "wonderfully forgiving people"? I just don't know!

englishandthedutch.substack.com

Dutch speakers have nose holes 👃, this Dutch author was pro-gay in 1922 😎, an incredibly stupid joke about a dog 🐶

English and the Dutch Newsletter #43

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Heddwen Newton - English & Dutch @heddwen.bsky.social · 23/08/2026

Dutch author Anjet Daanje is being considered for the Nobel Prize in literature. Reading up on her, I found this absolutely charming interview about how her book "The Remembered Soldier" was translated into English.

wordswithoutborders.org

The National Book Award Interviews: Anjet Daanje and David McKay - Words Without Borders

Anjet Daanje and David McKay discuss The Remembered Soldier, shortlisted for the 2025 National Book Award for Translated Literature.

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Heddwen Newton - English & Dutch @heddwen.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

Thanks for linking! There's actually a new newsletter brewing in my brain at the moment, after more than a year's break (what can I say? Kids come first!), so it's nice to see that people still care 😊

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Reposted by Heddwen Newton - English & Dutch

Jona Lendering @jonalendering.bsky.social · 10/08/2026

Een paar jaar geleden heeft @mtvtjilpt.bsky.social de "Dodenrit" van Drs.P. onherstelbaar verbeterd en eigenlijk is haar versie onverminderd actueel (en grappig). www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-Ph...

youtube.com

'Tropische Dodenrit', Wetenschapsrijm en Ed Berger

YouTube video by Edo Berger

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Heddwen Newton - English & Dutch @heddwen.bsky.social · 07/07/2026

A tricky part of being a language teacher: When you hear a certain error often enough, your brain gets used to it, and it becomes more difficult to flag. When I teach German students, by now I have to think for a second to know that the sentence "I became a present for my birthday" is wrong.

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Heddwen Newton - English & Dutch @heddwen.bsky.social · 30/06/2026

There's no clear answer. The name was "given" by UK commentators. Theory 1 is that they could pronounce Bayern but couldn't manage München, theory 2 is that München sounded too silly (Munchkin), theory 3 is that they were simply unaware that Bayern was German for Bavaria.

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Heddwen Newton - English & Dutch @heddwen.bsky.social · 17/06/2026

A new Dutch word to describe the group of people who walk along with a stopping train so that they can position themselves right by the doors when it stops. perronprocessie platform procession

vrt.be

VRT MAX

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Heddwen Newton - English & Dutch @heddwen.bsky.social · 17/06/2026

Oh yes, oranges are definitely involved in the Sinterklaas festivities, but the series made it seem like it is an orange-carrying freighter that Sinterklaas is hitching a ride on. You're the second person to comment this, though, so I need to re-word that sentence. Thanks!

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