English spoken here. Have you heard that everybody here speaks English? Well not quite, but an amazing number do. Most Nederlanders use English because it's there. On planet Earth about 1500 million people speak some English, 400 million as their mother tongue, and more than half of all Europeans are English-capable. Italians usually don't speak Dutch and most Dutch don't know Italian, but if they both have some English they can still do business. So English becomes the world's new pop interlingua. Is it a legacy of economic imperialism, or just too many reruns of "Friends"? Beats me. But the EU government uses it, many university courses are taught in it, and even some supermarket employees speak it.

Some.

When tourist guides tell you Amsterdammers speak excellent English, what they really mean is that as a tourist, you are expected to encounter those people who speak English on the job. People at work do what they have to do. If a business depends on foreign traffic, it tries to meet foreigners halfway. So the closer you cling to areas where tourists are expected, the more English you'll find. The flower merchant on the Singel has to know English. But when you wander into a hardware store in the Pijp, or a Turkish bakery on Harlemmerstraat, or a pizza joint way out in Osdorp, just know that the chance your shopkeeper speaks English is more luck than design.

Some of this is class-driven. Multilingual fluency is a key to higher education and better employment. By elimination, your average vakkenvuller (stockperson) at Albert Heijn may only have whatever English he or she picks up from pop song lyrics. When you meet a guy carrying a mop, he may be a respected pediactrician where he comes from, but he may speak no English at all. Conversely, in my experience most bank employees do not speak English. Not that they can't, they just don't feel like it. It's like "we got the money, so you wanna deal with us, learn the damn language."

Some people here like English. One old friend told me she was first attracted by the sound: "It has a swing to it," she said. And from my time spent at Mulligan's I know there's a distinct subculture of Dutch who like English because they like the Irish. But millions of Nederlanders are getting English whether they like it or not. English is creeping into Dutch like a fungus. Nowadays sentences like "We gaan funshoppen met de kids in de summersale" or the exhortation "Ringtones downloaden!" are both perfectly legitimate, if irritating, Dutch. And for some reason it's very trendy now for a Dutch advertisement, targeting a Dutch audience, to come with an English tag line. Marketeers seem to think this brands their product as bigger, cooler, more consequential, more stylish, more international — or something. Not everybody thinks it's cool. In a lonely street in the middle of the Jordaan a big ad poster tells me "the future is orange." Over the slogan, someone has spraypainted "SPREEK JE MOERSTAAL!" (Speak your mother tongue!)

Nederlands and Amsterdams. The Dutch don't call Dutch Dutch, they call it Nederlands (sounds like "nayderlunts"). If you draw a triangle between England, France and Germany, the Netherlands kinda falls in the middle. So does its language, kinda. Dutch has always been sponging up loan-words from other languages. By the 1600s this city was a raging whirlpool of coins, cultures and dialects. At some point the smarties felt compelled to standardize a national language. Guys like the poet Joost van den Vondel (for whom the park is named) got involved in that project. And they're still working on it today. We have something called Algemene Beschaafd Nederlands (general civilized Dutch), and every so often the authorities announce a new way to spell things. Recently there was some controversy about how to spell the word for pancake.

Amsterdam the city-state always had its own variants of the language. Lots of them in fact. A survey in the 1800s unearthed nineteen different Amsterdams dialects varying from one neighborhood to the next. But with time, influence, public education and modern media, more people swung to the standard lingo. Now Amsterdams is at risk of totally dissolving into Nederlands. But then again, things are still stirring. Now we have new loan-words like doekoe (money), Damsko (Amsterdam) and fa waka? (how ya doing?) from Surinamese. Take a long ride on the Metro and you'll hear some quite different Dutch than they speak on TV.

They're not Germans. Just a word of caution to those of you who took a bit of German in high school. Since Dutch is essentially a "germanic" language, many words resemble their German counterparts. So you may be tempted to go around talking to Dutch people in broken German, thinking it will somehow endear you to them. It won't. Picture this. At a restaurant in high tourist season, a Dutch waiter is taking too long to serve a German tourist. The tourist moans, "Will you hurry up, I'm starving here!" The waiter says "Yeah, so was my grandma." Many Nederlanders have more or less forgiven the Germans for what happened between 1940 and 1945. But that doesn't mean they wanna be Germans.

You just have to know. Dutch is a work in progress, and its swirly, spongy evolution has left us with something only partly rule-based. While it's not as nearly as irregular as English, there are a great many things you "just have to know." You can have two nouns that both take the article de, but one's masculine and one's feminine, so you use different pronouns for them. You just have to know. A middle-aged Dutch friend of mine swears that several nouns have even switched genders since he was a kid. An English guy told me he gets around this problem by diminutivizing as many nouns as possible, as the diminutives are always neuter. The Dutch guy on my left said "Oh that's why you talk like a queer!"

What's more challenging is to know the genders of the many acronyms tossed about in modern Dutch. Yes, acronyms have genders too, and somewhere deep in every acronym there's a noun determining it. But since they never tell you what the acronym stands for ... you just have to know.

To stymie us even further, many Dutch words are not pronounced as Dutch. For example, according to Dutch pronunciation rules, the word tram should sound a bit like "trum." But they say "trem." That's because they consider it an English loan-word, and yet they can't pronounce the English short-A sound. You might wonder why tram is an English word, when no English-speaking country even has trams. That's just part of the appealing mystery, see. The pronunciation rules also dictate that the city name Enschede should sound like "en SKAY duh." But alas it is "EN ska DAY." You just have to know — but how can you know?

You see, every natural language is as much a filter for exclusion as a medium for communion. Dutch is no exception. To speak the language flawlessly you can't just go by the code, you must become assimilated into the culture. Since that will never happen to me, they will always know I'm a foreigner. And I hate to admit it, but there is some cultural utility to that. Think about it. Holland is already one of the most densely populated countries on earth. If everybody who fell in love with the place came to live here, the sheer weight of them would sink the country back into the sea. They have to make it a little hard for us.

Having said all that, I'm now going to bore you with a quick pronunciation guide. Not so you can get assimilated into Dutch culture, but so you can tell a taxi dispatcher where the hell you are stranded.

Pronouncing where you are. Mind you, a lot of people come and go and have a great time without once pronouncing the name of anything. They tell me "Yeah, I ran into him on that street with the restaurants." Or "I'm at a phone booth near that big place where I usually get off the tram." I also have one friend who has lived here twenty years, who knows exactly where to buy that, knows the quick way to get there, knows the life story of the shop owner — but cannot tell you the owner's name, the name of the shop, what street it's on or what neighborhood it's in.

I'm not like that. I feel like I'm still lost until I can say where I am out loud, preferably without making anyone snicker. If you're that way too, maybe I can help. I'm not going to teach you how to pronounce Dutch. I'll teach you to mispronounce it, using the nearest thing to Dutch sounds in American English.

Consonants mostly sound like the English ones, except ...

G sounds like if we tried to say K and H at the same time. Just pretend you swallowed a bug, or imitate a cat hissing. So geel (yellow) sounds somewhere between "hail" and "kale."

J sounds like our Y. Thus ja sounds like "yah" and Wat doe je? sounds like its literal English translation "what do ya?"

N tends to be silent in words ending in EN. They swear they really are pronouncing it, we just can't hear them. When a Dutchman yells for the tram driver to open a stuck door — "Opa!" — he sounds to me like he's calling his grandfather.

SCH sounds like in English "school". Not like in German. They used to check for German spies in the underground that way, by making them pronounce the city name "Scheveningen." If it came out sounding like like "SKAY va ning ah" then they were Dutch. If it was "SHAY va ning en" then the speaker was certainly a Mof.

V is kinda between our V and F.

W sounds somewhere between our W and V, if you can imagine such a thing. If you really wanna analyze it, ask a Dutch person to pronounce the web address www.vvv.nl.

Vowels and diphthongs play out quite differently from ours.

A sounds like "uh" but AA sounds like "ah." The length of the vowel affects meaning. Vak (a box or space in a grid) sounds like "fuck" but vaak (often) sounds like "fahhk!"

E inside a word sounds like our long A. So beter (better) sounds like "baiter." But at the end of a word it's voiced as "uh." So the canal name Geldersekade sounds like "KHEL der sa KAH duh."

EI sounds like "eye." So does IJ, kinda. To them there's a difference, but it's hard for us to hear.

OE is like our OO, so koel sounds like "cool" (and means the same too).

OO is like our long O, so telefoon sounds just like "telephone".

OU sounds as in English OU or OW. Stadhouderskade sounds like "stud how der SKAH duh."

UI is somewhere right between our "ow" and "eye." Therefore muis (mouse) sounds between "mouse" and "mice". It's tricky cuz you wanna say "ooey" as in the Spanish name Luis. Radhuisstraat, where the post office is, sounds between "RUD how straht" and "RUD high straht." Not "rud HOOEY straht."

Another important thing to keep in mind is that Nederlanders are compulsive concatenators. They can invent compound words at will just by shamelessly gluing shorter words together. And since they're already Dutch, they can easily parse the long words because they the constituent parts are so familiar. While to us the word beroepsaansprakelijkheidsverzekering looks like a joke, a Dutch person can easily see what it means (professional liability insurance). We put spaces in between this shit, they don't. So the trick is to cut these place names apart in your head as you look at the street signs. You see Lange Leidsedwarsstraat and in your mind it becomes Lange Leidse dwars straat. You see Oudezijds Achterburgwal and parse it into Oude zijds Achter burgwal.

Some place-name bits you'll see around town:
Burgwal ("berkh-vull") = city-wall, rampart or moat.
Dam = ("dumb") = dam.
Dijk = ("dike") = dike.
Dok = ("dock") = dock.
Gracht = ("khrakht") = canal.
Hoek = ("hook") = corner.
Hof = ("hof") = enclosed yard/compound, as in the nunnery "Begijnhof."
Kade = ("kah-da") = quay, like where you can unload a boat.
Kolk = ("kolk") = pool or eddy. (There are two I know of, one on each side -- the Nieuwezijds Kolk and Oudezijds Kolk.)
Laan = ("lahn") = avenue.
Plantsoen = ("plunt-soon") = planting or garden.
Plein = ("pline") = square
Schans = ("skhunce") = trench or entrenchment
Sluis = ("slouse / slice") = a sluice or lock.
Steeg = ("steakh") = climb / alley (the alleys called steeg on the west side of the Amstel are slightly diagonal because originally they sloped downhill to the water, and that made them easier to walk down)
Straat = ("straht") = street
Tuin = ("town / tyne") = garden or yard (a speeltuin is a playground)
Weg = ("wekh") = way, road

And then there's
Eerste = ("air-sta") = first
Tweede = ("tvay-da") = second
Lang = ("lung") = long.
Kort = ("kort") = short.
Dwars = ("dvarss") = across, perpendicular or contrary.

Often the Amsterdammers would name a street, then name a couple surrounding streets relative to that one. It's almost like they ran out of ideas. Thus near Leidseplein we have ...
Leidse-straat (the street to Leiden),
Korte Leidse-dwars-straat (the short cross-street to the street to Leiden)
Lange Leidse-dwars-straat (the long cross-street to the street to Leiden)
and finally Leidse-kruis-straat (the Leiden cross-street).

And over in the Jordaan we have ...
Boom-straat (tree street)
Eerste Boom-dwars-straat (first cross-street to tree street)
Tweede Boom-dwars-straat (second cross-street to tree street).

Weirder still, even when they're naming a street after a person, sometimes they just make two of the same, right next to each other. So by the Overtoom you have two streets in honor of a poet from the 1600s named Constantijn Huygens: Eerste Constantijn Huygensstraat and Tweede Constantijn Huygensstraat. Same goes for Jean Henri van Swinden, a mathematician of the 1700s. Over by the Dappermarkt he gets two streets named after him. Meanwhile Gandhi gets one laan and Einstein gets one weg. How do they decide which dudes are worthy of having two streets named after them? I guess you just have to know.

Okay so let's practice.

Damrak — DUMB ruck.
Rokin — RAW kin.
Begijnensteeg — be KHIGH neh steakh.
Weteringschans — VAY terring skhunce.
Leidseplein — LIGHTS a pline.
Lange Leidsedwarsstraat — LUNG a lights a DVARSS straht.
Van Woustraat — fun WOW straht! (Gotta check it out!)
Lijnbaansgracht — LINE bahns khrakht.
Overtoomse Sluis — over toam's a SLICE.
Oudezijds Achterburgwal — OW duh zites ukh ter BERKH vull.
Eerste Constantijn Huygensstraat — AIR stuh con stan tine HIGH khens straht.
Tweede Lange Egelantiersdwarssteeg — TVAY deh LUNG a EKH alun TEARS DVARSS steakh. (I just made that one up. See I should become a city planner!)

"Two way bicycle street, except for loading and unloading, Monday thru Friday 9 am to 1 pm"

Signs you might see. Let's look at some signs you'll encounter out and about, with special attention to those whose ignoring might risk your health or dignity.

Some signs you can figure out by experimentation, like duwen and trekken (push and pull). But do not experiment with anything labeled noodrem (emergency brake) or levensgevaarlijk (mortally dangerous).

Signs containing the words let op or pas op are telling you to be careful and watch out for something. You might see them around Amsterdam's many picturesque construction or demolition sites. Let op — NAT means careful, this is wet (paint). Let op de afstapje means mind the little step down. If it's above the door to a nightclub, this could affect how cool you look upon entering.

Niet tegen de deur leunen means don't lean against the door. In the Metro cars this is accompanied by the icon of a little man falling down, so before I learned some Dutch I thought it meant "no breakdancing."

At the exit door of a tram there's an icon of a little man with his arms outstretched. He seems to be saying "hug me" but I think he means "don't come in this way." The words niet instappen on the front of a tram mean don't step in — it's buiten dienst (out of service).

Open and gesloten mean open and closed. If something is geopend tot 11 then it's open till eleven.

Ingang and uitgang mean entrance and exit. Exit doors are often marked with the word UIT. Geen ingang means no entrance, and alleen uitgang means exit only. (In the 1980s they had posters saying alleen uitgang with a picture of somebody's butt, as part of a campaign against anal sex. I don't think it worked.) A nooduitgang is an emergency exit, so if you go out that door you might trigger an alarm or something. A sign with a little man running toward a door points toward the emergency exit.

Uitrit vrijlaten means "out-ride free-leave" or don't block this (vehicular) exit. Wegsleepregeling with an icon of a tow-truck means "away-clearing-regulation" or that cars parked here will be towed.

Geen fietsen plaatsen means don't put bicycles here. Fietsen worden verwijderd means bicycles get removed from here.

WC means water-closet or toilet. Dames and heren mean ladies and gentlemen. Also known as vrouwen and mannen, women and men.

The abbreviation aub means alstublieft or please. (Sounds like "ull stu bleeft".) This means somebody wants you to do or not do something, otherwise they wouldn't be saying please. For example aub niet roken means please don't smoke here.

When you see even wachten aub or even geduld aub, somebody wants you to wait or be patient. That happens a lot here, and in fact Dutch people do seem to be pretty patient most of the time. You might see this in the foyer of a restaurant where they want you to wait to be seated. Or on a stripe on the floor where you have to wait for the next available service counter.

Betreden op eigen risico = enter at your own risk.

If you're gonna buy a train ticket somewhere, know that binnenland means within-country (domestic) and buitenland means out-of-country. So if you're going to France you go see the folks at the buitenland ticket desk. And be prepared to even wachten for a while.

When you're shopping: korting (literally "shortening") means discount. Voordeel means advantage, specifically a price advantage. Vomar is short for voordeelmarkt or discount market. Stuntprijs means a special or "stunt" price. Uitverkoop and opruiming mean it's a clearance sale. Sometimes you just see the word reklame on an item in a store. Reklame means advertisement. I don't know how a hunk of cheese can be an ad, maybe they mean this cheese is the one you saw advertised.

About this vordeel thing. Dutch people are said to be cheap, and some of them proudly proclaim themselves to be. At my bookkeeper's house a man told me "This is Holland, whenever you're offered anything for free, you take it." (He was referring to a cup of coffee.) In my experience a lot of Dutch people are actually quite generous, but I guess maybe they manage to do it without spending a lot of money.

Pesky abbreviations. A lot of signs use abbreviations or acronyms. This makes it hard for foreigners. You might not know that ma t/m do means Monday through Thursday, or that a.s. nov. means the coming November. And translation dictionaries usually don't list abbreviations. Why? Because they would never fit. There are freakin thousands of them. Newspaper stories are filled with acronyms for branches for government, broadcasting groups, divisions of the education system or social care. Recently a branch of the NVV was negotiating for a better CAO. Whoever they are, I wish them luck with whatever that is.*

You can buy a dictionary of 30,000 Dutch abbreviations, but somehow I don't expect you're going to.

Why the abbrevomania? Simple. The words are too damn long. As life grows more complex, they just concatenate new words to describe it. Thus we end up with beroepsaansprakelijkheidsverzekering. (I saw that in a TV text ad one night, and there was nothing wrong with my television set.) Sometimes even a simple idea will not fit on a sign or in a magazine listing. Hence the need for economy.