Hi, I am a Dutch native. There is nothing wrong with the phrase “Ben je Engels?”, to ask if someone is English. It does indeed mean “are you from England” as well as “do you speak English”. To avoid confusion you could indeed use the other phrases you mentioned, they too are correct.
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Hi there! Sorry if this is the wrong place to put this, am new to the forums and can repost elsewhere if needed.
I saw something mentioned above about “Ik denk dat het cool is” in Dutch 1, but I have a different query about that sentence.
That sentence was very confusing for me when it popped up, because the verbal translation for it says “Ik denk dat het gaaf is”, when we have previously been taught that the dutch word for ‘cool’ is, well, cool. I was told by a Dutch friend after sending them a video that ‘gaaf’ is another word for ‘cool’, but for a long time thought that the wrong translation had been put with that sentence and was very confused - especially because I hadn’t seen the word ‘gaaf’ at all prior to learning that sentence. I didn’t know what they were actually saying, or what the word actually was. Is there a way to change the sentence so that it says ‘gaaf’ instead of ‘cool’? Just so that we stop seeing “Ik denk dat het cool is” when the speaker is saying “Ik denk dat het gaaf is”. I don’t know how others feel about it, but I get really thrown off when I’m hearing ‘gaaf’ but seeing ‘cool’. And when you haven’t been introduced to the word ‘gaaf’ at all before this, it really is confusing trying to figure out what is being said.
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There’s a few examples like that, both in the official courses and the user-made ones. When I come across them, I just shrug it off, learn both words / phrases, and commit to memory what Memrise is expecting as an answer, even if it doesn’t match the spoken text. I don’t know if it’s possible to get those examples fixed (at least, get the text to match the spoken words). @amanda-norrsken do you know?
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I’ll tag @MerlijnB
Can you have a look at this? It’s been mentioned before, this introduction of “gaaf” for “cool” when the learners on this course have only learnt the word “cool” for “cool”.
The text doesn’t match the audio.
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The same thing like in post #59:
In Dutch 3, level 27: the written word kleerkast is pronounced klerenkast.
Please fix it. Thanks!
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Additionally, a native speaker tells me that word isn’t even used, and it ought to be “kledingkast” instead. This was actually what I was just on my way here to mention, and lo & behold, most recent post, lol.
Dutch 3 - Level 31 : “ik was in de zevende hemel” is translated as “I was over the moon,” except we’ve just learned moon (maan), which is clearly not in that phrase, and “seventh heaven” most certainly is an English phrase.
Please please pleeeeeease fix this insanely confusing mixup of phrases!
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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