People are naturally very proud of their academic achievements and titles and want them stated in their communications. But it’s not as trivial as it might seem.
Category Archives: Advanced
Overdoing short sentences
Dutch people like short sentences. More and more often nowadays. Very modern. Makes it impactful. Easy to write, surely?
Joined-up writing
Backoffice. Accountmanager. Two English words glued together, used as a compound in Dutch. Which doesn’t make it correct in English!
…he said (ten lines later).
Open quotes. Someone’s talking. Who? For a while. OK: who? More but from whom? Finally: close quotes at the end of the paragraph and we learn who said it.
Insights… preferably not.
One of the worst offenders in the list of words overused by Dutch authors, because ‘inzicht’ is hugely more common.
Different from what?
If you can answer that, “verschillende” can be translated as “different”. Otherwise, “various” is often the better solution.
Surname prefixes
Dutch surnames often have prefixes (van, van der, de, ter, etc.) and are alphabetized by the remainder, which stops half the phone book being listed under V.
Plurals are in the mind’s eye
Singular subjects require singular verbs and plural subjects require plural verbs… except when they don’t.
Using “a” and “an”
Whether to use “a” or “an” depends on if a vowel follows. But remember: that’s determined by the spoken sound, not the alphabetical letter.
Sustainability and durability
The word “duurzaam” covers two different meanings in Dutch (eco-friendly and long-lasting), so you can’t use “sustainable” as a catch-all translation.
Advanced Dunglish 