# zoo spreekt men nederlandsch



## rache_nt

It's the title of a book, I'm translating a story from english to spanish, but a character mentions this book in dutch; I have no notions of this language and I'd like to write down a footnote. If you could help me with the meaning in english I'll understand it and I'll write a spanish version. I've searched online dictionaries and I've imagine something like: "as we speak in Netherlands", but I'm not sure at all because I know nothing about dutch grammar or which the subject of the sentence could be. Thanks in advance.


----------



## Peterdg

Welcome to the forum.

It literally means: "That's the way Dutch is spoken". (In Spanish: "Así se habla neerlandés")

I can give you some more information about the book. In the mid sixties, there used to be a television program with the same title on the Belgian television (Dutch speaking channel). The program was intended to teach correct Dutch to the audience: it commented on many common mistakes and the correct way to say something. It was broadcasted almost daily and each episode took a couple of minutes.

The book you are mentioning is a sequel of the television series where the most important items of the series were published in book form.

EDIT: I just noticed that the title mentions "nederlands*ch*": That is old spelling. In the current spelling, this would be "Nederlands".


----------



## rache_nt

Thank you so much, Peterdg!!! I didn't know it was a "real life" book, I imagined it was fictional when I didn't find it online, but may be it was because of the spelling. The character of the story is travelling from South Africa to Holland, and he is learning the language, of course!! Now it's so clear... 

Furthermore, your note about the spelling is very useful. In fact, the original says: "Zoo Spreekt Men Nederlandsch"; I thought "Zoo" was a printing "errata", is that old spelling too?

Anyway, thanks again, my first experience in the forum and a wise move!


----------



## Peterdg

Yes, "zoo" is also old spelling.


----------



## YellowOnline

It might be relevant for your translation to know that this old spelling is probably from before 1954. Depending on the time of the story, it might be interesting to translate the title - if you do so - to an archaic Spanish orthography.


----------



## rache_nt

Thanks! I'm not translating the title in the story, but I'd like to explain the origin in a footnote. What shocks me is that the story, although it's not specified in the text, should be set afterwards, because the character has this "tattered textbook titled...". The book he has is old, I mean. May it be related to a dialectal issue more than to the time of the story? The character is in Zeerust (may be his first language is afrikaans) and the author (born 1965) grew up in Johannesburg, but has lived in Amsterdam for more than 25 years, as far as I know.

Thanks again for your help, you're awesome!


----------



## YellowOnline

rache_nt said:


> Thanks! I'm not translating the title in the story, but I'd like to explain the origin in a footnote. What shocks me is that the story, although it's not specified in the text, should be set afterwards, because the character has this "tattered textbook titled...". The book he has is old, I mean. May it be related to a dialectal issue more than to the time of the story? The character is in Zeerust (may be his first language is afrikaans) and the author (born 1965) grew up in Johannesburg, but has lived in Amsterdam for more than 25 years, as far as I know.
> 
> Thanks again for your help, you're awesome!



It definitely not a dialect, because the subject is the (old) standard  language, the spelling is consistent with contemporary spelling and  dialects seldom have an official spelling but tend to be written pretty  much phonetically. In Afrikaans it would be something like "so leer men  Afrikaans", so that is not an explication. I guess it was just a very old  book the character used


----------

