Heee -- google chrome thoughtfully offers to translate the article into English for me.

That's googlechrome.nl right?
Bloody Dutch!

Another bit of very idiosyncratic Dutch news:
In my home town Utrecht the equivalent of the Amsterdam Red Light District (De Wallen) is a canal lined by boats with prostitutes plying their trade.
The city council has withdrawn the permit for prostitution because of evidence of traffic in women taking place.
The organisation that was renting out the boats to prostitutes has appealed with the court but the decision was upheld.
So today prostitutes were leaving while crying and swearing apparently.
At some point a coöperation of prostitutes offered to take over running the boats. I don't know what became of that plan.

that's easy for you to spreken... or spreek...

I've been able to get by in French and German speaking countries using phrases in those languages but I gave up in the NL when the the response to " sprekt u Engels" was the Dutch equivalent of " huh".

A friend from the US lives in Utrecht with her Dutch husband. They've adopted two Asian boys.

I've been able to get by in French and German speaking countries using phrases in those languages but I gave up in the NL when the the response to " sprekt u Engels" was the Dutch equivalent of " huh".

A friend from the US lives in Utrecht with her Dutch husband. They've adopted two Asian boys.

So the Dutch are slow-witted as well...!

I guess we're really not used to foreigners trying to speak our language to us. And of course those efforts by necessity will sound garbled in the beginning.

I was told when I tried to speak Dutch to someone in Amsterdam that I was being foolish. "I should be speaking English. Very few people in the world speak Dutch. Don't bother to learn it."

Ha. I might say that as well.
But the truth is: we try to keep our language secret. So that all those non-Dutchies have no idea what we're saying about them.

I knew this guy from Haarlem who wore a shirt that said 'Hallo Boppers!" on it. Whenever I asked what it meant he'd get embarrassed and say, "Oh, it's just this guy, a TV comedian, it's for Dutch people, don't worry about it," so it took me a decade and the intervention of the internet to find out. Now I watch reruns of Bob de Rooij (Paul de Leeuw) all the time. Everything he does and says makes me laugh, and (perhaps because) I don't understand a word of it.

My Dutch friend also taught me how to say "Godverdomme!" which became a habit when I worked in mall retail in Maryland. Whenever I was frustrated I could curse with impunity, sure that nobody would understand and take offense. That is, until one time, when a seven-foot tall blonde woman happened by, laughed, and scolded me for my impiety and poor pronunciation.

'Godverdomme' is a wonderful exclamation of frustration. Really makes the guttural Dutch g sound shine.
Must have been a strange experience for a Dutchie to hear familiar cursing in a Maryland mall of all places.

I can't imagine what you make of Paul de Leeuw when you don't understand a word.
Looking at that and imagining that foreigners can see it makes me a bit embarassed by proxy. In a "what will the neighbours think" way.

In one of those videos you linked to he goes hunting for "black stockings" in a rural area that happens to be our bible belt. "black stockings" of refers to orthodox protestant christians.
I don't think that kind of thing would be broadcast in the US on mainstream tv.
But what do I know.

I do get the sense that his schtick is really transgressive, and all the people around him are highly embarrassed. Kind of like Sacha Baron-Cohen, but Paul de Leeuw seems to pick smarter targets, so there's less "I'm making fun of you" and more "I'm making fun of us."

Plus, he does a lot of crazy stunts like disrupting the Eurovision tally and drinking milk from a woman's breast on live TV. But since I don't really understand it, for me it's just: look, listen, and laugh. For some reason the sound of the language lends itself to comedy, to my ear. And Paul de Leeuw makes great faces and has an infectiously funny sense of physical humor.

It's as though he's constantly in "Make the baby giggle" mode, and the baby is me.

Hmm. My appraisal of his form of humour is less charitable.
But I like your impression better.

It's too bad that we hang out on metachat and metafilter and know eachother for years and years (I started reading mefi in 2004 I think) but will probably never meet.
I feel that I know some of youlee (plural you after the Dutch 'jullie') textually quite well.

But I'm quite sure I'll never make it to Pietersburgh, Marijland, Adelaïde etc.
(I'm rather vague on where some of you are located since we don't have geo info in our mecha profiles)

Everyone in Holland thought I was Italian, like apparently shocked that I was American level of assumption.

I have no idea why.

Ha. Other people make an observation about the Netherlands. But you make an observation about yourself.
Would you say you're rather self absorbed?

Very.

It's like my main personality trait.