sábado, 24 de diciembre de 2011

Prettige Kerstdagen!



One day I'll write about Dutch musicians that I like (this is Miss Montreal) but in the meantime...

Merry Christmas everybody!

Algún día escribiré sobre los músicos holandeses que me gustan (esta es Miss Montreal) pero mientras tanto...

¡Feliz Navidad a todos!

domingo, 18 de diciembre de 2011

The sound of goodbye / El sonido del adiós


Maybe you are not familiar with how the Dutch language sounds but to me it's an explosion of 'g', 'h', 'j' and 't'. Just the question 'how are you?' ('hoe gaat het met je?') is a clear example. And to be honest, it doesn't sound very musical... but oh dear, the surprise comes at the end.

When they say goodbye your ears are flooded with the finest melody. It's not just one word... it's a bunch of them, a sweet combination of consonants and vowels. If you say 'doei' they will reply 'dag', if you say 'dag' they will answer back with 'doeg', if you say 'doeg' they will reply 'doegie' and so on, always with a different word.

The funny thing comes when you see a group of friends saying goodbye to each other and you get to hear all the possible options at one time. It would go like: 'doei', 'haije', 'doegie', 'daaaag', 'toedels', 'doei doei', 'toedeledoki', 'doeg', 'laters', taubé', 'groetjes', 'toedeloeeeee'! :-) 'Google Translate' to hear it (click there on the speaker icon).

It could be defined as a delightful musical ensemble of sudden unexpected 'a capella' singers. Are you ready to say goodbye to 2011 in this musical way?

--
My sincere gratitude to my Dutch colleagues Elisa, Karen and Lonneke for their invaluable contribution to this post!

Versión en español