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Dutch Sayings

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Having arrived here from Holland and trying to get my head round some Aussie slang, and failing, I tried teaching some of my new Australia friends some common Dutch sayings. However if you translate these Dutch sayings into English in the most literal way they really don’t make sense anymore! It kind of became a game between myself, and some other Dutchies in Noosa, to come up with the most funny translations which totally do not make sense when you say them in English.

Now I want to share our collection and I might even become as famous as Shakespeare with his quotes and sayings.

If you know any more cool ones, just comment below! It doesn’t matter which language it is.

So here they are – some Dutch sayings literally translated into English

Het regent pijpenstelen – It is raining pipesteels. (or steel pipes but I prefer pipesteels because it’s wrong and therefore funnier)

Basically it means “it is raining really hard”. When it rains really hard the rain looks like steel pipes. That is how people started saying it.

Helaas pindaskaas – Unfortunately peanut butter

This one is my favorites because you can use it all the time. It is not really a saying but we just say it because it rhymes.

Ik heb er schoon genoeg van – I have there clean enough from.

This one I got from one of my buddies on my Fraser Island trip (thanks Mart). It means that you had enough of something. Someone or something is annoying you and you are done with it, you had enough of it.

Op een oude fiets moet je het leren – You have to learn it on an old bicycle.

This is a really old saying and the meaning nowadays is way different than years ago. Nowadays it is related to sex. It means that if you want to learn how to have great sex, do it with someone old(er) than you. Me and my friends used to joke about it when one of my friends was flirting with an old(er) person.

Nu komt de aap uit de mouw – There comes the monkey out of the sleeve.

People use this when something suddenly becomes clear. They say that this saying originates from the time when magicians actually really had a monkey up their sleeve which suddenly had to pop out. Just like the rabbit in the hat.

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