It’s a figure of speech. These rarely translate 1:1, hence the difference. You’ll see that happen in many other courses as well.
Except it’s two different phrases for a similar figure of speech when the same one exists, therefore using a different yet related one only makes it incredibly confusing and inaccurate.
Oh well, I didn’t know there was a 1:1 English translation “to be in seventh heaven”, so you’re absolutely right!
“Zeilen” was covered in Dutch 3, level 29, and is repeated again in Dutch 4, level 9. Can the latter please be removed? I will “ignore” it but I really dislike doing that.
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Hi there
I just finished Dutch level 1.
Dutch level 2 has an error and jumps to level 3, can’t access it, no even downloading it from Google.
A few things I’ve come across in Dutch 7, levels 1-19 (the current course translations in brackets):
- het aanbod (range) should rather be offer, tender or supply; “range” would translate as bereik, assortiment, draagkracht or sortering
- slaan op (to smash) - the infinitive is opslaan and means to store, garner, save; to smash would translate to intrappen, verbrijzelen, vermorzelen, verpletteren, ingooien
- het optreden (the performance) is probably not entirely wrong but would rather translate to action, activity, play or presentation; “performance” would translate to prestatie, resultaat, uitslag, uitvoering or taakuitoefening
- voorzichtig (carefully) is used both as adverb and as adjective, so “careful” should probably be added
- alweer (once again) should rather be “once more” or “again”, not both
- tweemaal (twice more) should be “twice”
- grootbrengen (to raise) - while that is not entirely wrong, I would bet that “to bring up” would be the more natural translation; “raise (a child)” would rather be verhogen
- hevig (severe) rather means violent or fierce; severe would translate to ernstig
Please note that I’m neither a native Dutch nor English speaker. The above is the result of my German understanding (most of the above words have very close German counterparts) and online dictionaries where I looked up all words. So I might as well be wrong. 
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Hallo @Olaf.Rabbachin,
As a native Dutch speaker I would like to say well done. Just some small comments.
- “aanbod” is not the most likely translation of “range” but it is possible.
“a range of (products, services)”
I can’t think of any context where “range” would mean “draagkracht”. - “optreden” is a good and also a common translation for “performance”. The problem here is that both the Dutch and the English word have several very different meanings.
An “optreden” can mean performance, appearance, show" and “intervention, response” but also “occurence”. - “hevig” does mean “violent or fierce” but is also used as translation for “severe” especially for weather and medical situations: “hevige stormen” and “hevige pijn”.
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I’m new on this forum and I can’t find where I can start a new topic so that’s the reason I put it here::
I think I’ve discovered an little mistake in the English course ‘English 5’ for Dutch speakers. There is the verb ‘to taste’ translated in ‘smaken’ instead of ‘proeven’. I think this is not correct in Dutch. We don’t know a verb ‘smaken’ at all.
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I was under the impression that I already answered to your posting - sorry that I didn’t!
Thanks for your comments - very helpful! Learning Dutch from English is a bit challenging at times, particularly if the EN-NL translations are very much different from what I’d expect when translating DE-NL.
That said, is there any Memrise language specialist reading? I browsed through the postings and it seems that @MerlijnB is one, but he hasn’t posted since May 2017.
I do have another bunch of things I’ve come across. I could log them and post them here, but if there’s no response from someone who could change flaws this feels like a waste of time …
hello @Olaf.Rabbachin,
MerlijnB is here on the forum answering questions and making corrections but intermittently. Sometimes it takes him a few weeks but he did answer me just last month.
By the way, replying on this forum sometimes does not work as expected. It is usually best to include an @(username) to make sure the person you’re replying to gets a notification or e-mail.
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Hi @Olaf.Rabbachin,
Please go ahead and post your questions, suggestions and doubts, and I’ll be sure to have a look and fix things if necessary asap!
Best,
Merlijn
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Sorry for not having noticed this before! I’ll make the necessary changes this weekend. Thank you so much for your help improving this course!
Best,
Merlijn
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“daar zo” is rather colloquial. “daar” should also work fine.
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Further to what @duaal wrote, I’d translate daar zo with somewhere over there and I’d think of it as an answer to someone asking i. e. where’s the next bus stop which is just around the corner.
Thank you, Amanda
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DUTCH 3
Fuel your vocab: places
de hoofdstad is translated as ‘the capital’.
Can I suggest that this translation be amended to “the capital city”? Or at least, ‘the capital (city)’?
The word ‘capital’ doesn’t just mean ‘capital city’, so a narrower translation might be helpful in avoiding misconceptions. I don’t know how many times I have heard learners say things like, “but X means Y!!!” when confronted with the fact that a particular word means something else in a different context.
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Hi Amanda,
Thanks for your input! This has been fixed now.
Best,
Merlijn
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