# Cheers!



## riccardo66

Could someone tell me how to say this in Belgian-Dutch?


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## iKevin

Cheers as in a drinking toast = ''proost!'' You could also say ''op je gezondheid'' but no one uses that expression, as far as I know.


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## riccardo66

Thanks, Kevin.  I am going to sound it like the German prost, unless you
come back with a negatory on that.  I know, it's supposed to be prosit in German, but you only hear that when they are singing, otherwise it's prost, as in 'prost-ex' (down the hatch).


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## Vasiliy

iKevin said:


> Cheers as in a drinking toast = ''proost!'' You could also say ''op je gezondheid'' but no one uses that expression, as far as I know.


 
"Op *u* gezondheid" would sound more like a Belgian

Also "schol", this is what I use


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## HKK

Vasiliy said:


> "Op u*w* gezondheid" would sound more like a Belgian



Or just _gezondheid_. Or _santé_, as in French. All of the options mentioned can be used pretty much interchangeably, just choose one that you find easy to pronounce.


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## riccardo66

I can see the gezondheid an santé (being, 'to your health', but where does schol come from?


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## Brownpaperbag

*Schol* seems to come from the Scandinavian *skål* (Swedish) because people used to drink blood from the enemy's *skull* in the North of Europe, as claimed by Wikipedia.

I'll stick to _proost_ 

Brown


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## HKK

Interesting etymology there, Brownpaperbag... Wiktionary says _skål_ comes from Old Norse _skál_ meaning bowl and also having been spoken for a toast. I think it's safe to say this is a cognate to Dutch _schaal_, also meaning bowl.

The English word skull may also be connected to a cognate of skál/schaal according to this etymology site. According to my Van Dale etymological dictionary, Dutch schaal is cognate with English _shell_. All of these words stem from the IE root *_(s)kel_ carrying the meaning of "to cut, cleave".

By the way, I'm sticking to _santé_.


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## riccardo66

OK, so when I'm in Flanders, trying their excellent beers, by the way anybody have any favorites they could tell me?, I can chose from gezondheid, santé, proost and schol?  Geez, Belgium is complicated.  I thought maybe it would be just one thing for Flemish speakers and one thing for French speakers, but NOOOOOOOOOO.  Maybe I'll just stick with cheers!


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## Joannes

riccardo66 said:


> OK, so when I'm in Flanders, trying their excellent beers, by the way anybody have any favorites they could tell me?, I can chose from gezondheid, santé, proost and schol? Geez, Belgium is complicated. I thought maybe it would be just one thing for Flemish speakers and one thing for French speakers, but NOOOOOOOOOO. Maybe I'll just stick with cheers!


*Santé* works for both 

But speakers of Dutch would pronounce it as if it were a Dutch word (*santee*), with the /n/ and no nasalized a as in French.

As for the beer suggestions, I'm going to refer you to this thread titled 'Beer'.


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## riccardo66

Thanks, Joannes, I would really like to see that link to the beer info, but it seems that no matter what I do I cannot reach it because I do not have permission to.  And I'm not really sure how to clear the web browser's cache, although I thought I did, so anyway, my dummheit is not your problem.  By the way can you tell me how to make those nifty links?


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## Rft

anyone of the aforementioned words will do although proost is less frequently used in Belgium in my experience.

Op uw/u/aa(voor de Antwerpenaren) gezondheid rather implies that the person you are saying it to, paid for your drink.


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## riccardo66

So it sounds like I might be better off with santé.  How about dank u wel, does that go OK in Belgium as in Holland, or is there any change?


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## Rft

Santé is an excellent choice. Dank u wel sounds like you're a foreigner


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## riccardo66

No, I mean for saying thank you, in Belgian-Dutch.


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## Vasiliy

Yes that is perfectly fine; dank u, dank u wel, bedankt, merci


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