Can you explain to someone how to tell the time in Dutch? If not, you might need a refresher course. If you are new to the Dutch language, then you probably need a beginner’s post. Either way, this post on telling time should help.

The Tip That Makes Everything Easier

In English, when you tell the time, the minutes are expressed in relation to the hour. However, In Dutch the half hour and the hour are just as important as each other. Therefore, in Dutch the minutes are expressed in relation to both the hour and the half hour.

Hoe laat is het? (What time is it?)

Het is vier uur. (It is four o’clock.)

Het is half vier. (It is 3:30.)

Tips:

• Be careful if you are used to saying “half past” or “half four/five/etc.” Usually when saying this you mean 30 minutes after the hour but “half vier/vijf/etc.” in Dutch, means 30 minutes before the hour.
• The word uur is dropped if you are not saying a round hour.
• Om = at: Hoe laat vertrek jij? (At what time do you leave?) Om zes uur. (At six o’clock.)

Dividing the Clock

The clock is divided into two horizontal halves (draw a horizontal line through the nine and three of the clock face).

Kwart

kwart over = 15 minutes after the hour = het is kwart over twee = It is 2:15

kwart voor = 15 minutes before the hour = het is kwart voor zeven = it is 6:45

Half

over half –> het is vijf over half zes = it is 5:35 –> this is tricky, remember half zes means 5:30 and vijf over means 5 minutes after 5:30 (half hours are as important as hours – see above)

het is tien over half tien = it is 9:40 –> half tien means 9:30 and tien over means 10 minutes after 9:30

voor half –> het is vijf voor half zeven = it is 6:25 –> half zeven means 6:30 and vijf voor means 5 minutes before 6:30

N.B. If you are looking for a refresher on numbers, you might want to take a look at this post about counting in Dutch.

What might a Dutch Language Immersion Day look like for you? Here are some ideas:

• Read the news in Dutch. Don’t live in the Netherlands? You can still read the news. Here are two websites that are perfect for it: www.nu.nl and www.ad.nl
• Watch Dutch Bert and Ernie – we all need some Bert and Ernie in our lives and luckily, they can be found on YouTube.
• Change your Facebook language to Dutch. Don’t know how? Here are some simple instructions for changing the language of Facebook.
• Cook a Dutch recipe. Even better, cook a Dutch recipe that is in Dutch.
• Write your grocery shopping list in Dutch and then see if you can manage to remember what everything means.
• Spend the day only speaking Dutch. If you don’t have anyone around you to practise with, why not have a conversation in the Transparent Language Dutch group?
• Go virtual shopping on Marktplaats.
• Get your hands on some BYKI flashcards to increase your Dutch vocabulary.
• Switch your browser to google.nl and explore some of the options that come up in Dutch when going about your regular searches.
• Listen to Dutch music – if you need some ideas try Blof, Marco Borsato, Gers Pardoel
• Watch a movie with Dutch subtitles turned on
• Have a list of five new Dutch words and try to use them as many times as you can (correctly) throughout the day.
• Label objects in your house with post-it notes that have the Dutch word on them. If you are feeling really ambitious find out if each one is a de or het word.
• Practise your Dutch survival phrases.

What things would you add to the list?

On March 13th, 1905 Mata Hari (a name M’greet adopted with her new life in Paris) debuted as an exotic dancer. So admired were her dances, that she ended up performing in many European venues, including Spain, Monte Carlo and Germany.

Mata Hari’s heyday lasted from 1905 until 1912. As her career as an exotic dancer began to end, she replaced it with a new career, that of courtesan. Despite the career change, she did try to remain slightly active in the entertainment industry. On May 23rd 1914 she performed in Germany. Her performance, deemed “indecent,” was reported to the police and a police officer named Griebel decided to check it out. The story goes that he was enchanted by Mata Hari on the spot and invited her on a date.

It is here that the story of Mata Hari becomes a bit unclear. Several different theories exist about what happened next including one that says Griebel’s superior, Traugott von Jagow, became her boyfriend and ordered her to spy on France and another that says she went to a German “spy school” located in Antwerp, Belgium.

No matter what version you follow, Mata Hari departed Germany two days after war broke out on August 4th, 1914. Back in Paris she fell in love with the Russian officer Vladmir Masloff, who was often called Vadim. Vadim was eventually ordered back to the Front where he lost sight in his left eye due to being gassed by the Germans.

Vadim was in a military hospital near Vittel. Officially in the war zone, civilians such as Mata Hari, required special permission to travel there. While asking for that permission Mata Hari met Georges Ladoux, an army captain in charge of organising French counterespionage.

Mata Hari had already been facing some struggles getting permission to visit Vadim because of the rumours that she was a German spy due to her previous travels to Germany and her romantic involvement with a German, so she approached Ladoux to plead her case.

After confirming where her loyalties were, he asked her if she would consider spying on the Germans for the French. Spying could be a lucrative profession and the lure of the money is what decided it for Mata Hari.

It was arranged that she would do some spying in Brussels. However, due to the war she had to take a non-direct route to get there and in Britain she was arrested. Scotland Yard was looking for a German spy named Clara Benedix, who they thought she was. Convincing them she wasn’t, Ladoux then had her returned to Spain.

An unsuccessful spying mission during a romance with the German Major Arnold Kalle left Mata Hari without an assignment. At this time the French intercepted a message from the Germans where Mata Hari appeared to have a German known code name.

“To understand the central issue of Mata Hari’s guilt, it is necessary to be aware of a vital fact: the Germans were relaying information about her in a code that they knew the French had already broken. Thus, Germany intended that the French read these messages. Their motive may have been to lure France into killing one of its own agents or it may have been because she was truly a double agent operating for France after agreeing to spy for Germany and had been designated an expendable “fool-spy” by the Germans. In either case, it is safe to say that the Germans wanted her out of the way and wished the French to do the actual dirty work.” – Crime Library

On February 13th, 1917 Mata Hari was arrested by the French for espionage. She was interrogated and held pending trial. The court found her guilty, sentenced her to death and required her to pay the court costs.

Mata Hari was executed on October 15th 1917.

Her father, who had a successful hat business, hit hard times and went bankrupt when M’greet was 13. Her father then left the family to try his luck in Amsterdam, leaving her mother Antje to look after the family alone. Antje became depressed, sick and died when M’greet was 15.

Adam returned for the funeral but then persuaded extended family to take the children. M’greet went with her godfather to live in Sneek. She then went to Leiden to train as a kindergarden teacher. This did not go well and M’greet was forced to take refuge with her uncle in The Hague.

On July 11^th 1895, she married Rudolph MacLeod, a 38-year old career man in the Dutch military. Their first child, Norman John, was born on January 30th 1897. By this point the marriage was not a happy one and the fresh start M’greet had hoped for when the family was stationed in Abawara, Java was not to happen. On May 2^nd 1898, their second child, a girl, was born.

Rudolph was called to Medan, Sumatra a year later and M’greet and the children did not join him straight away but once they did, the relationship between the two improved.

On June 27^th 1889, M’greet was awoken by screams of agony from the childrens’ room. Both children had allegedly been poisoned (unknown by whom) but it is also possible that they had suffered complications relating to the treatment of syphilis contracted from their parents. Norman John died but the little girl, Jeanne, survived. The event pushed the couple apart and eventually they returned to Europe. Despite it being unusual for the time, M’greet filed for a legal separation, which was approved. However, Rudolph did not pay the court ordered monthly support and even took out ads telling the community not to supply goods or services to M’greet.

With everything falling apart, she had no choice but to leave Jeanne in Rudolph’s care and decided to give Paris one more chance.

To be continued…

If you are one of those detective-like people who enjoys spotting mistakes in films, picking out the typos in a book or is just an all around eagle eyed person then you may have noticed that the design of the Dutch blog has changed during the last week or so.

This is because, behind the scenes, Transparent Language has been busy changing platforms and working on a bigger and better design for all their blogs. This isn’t it…go ahead you can breathe a sigh of relief. But this is what we will be working with until the new designs are ready.

If in the process of changing things around and applying a new layer of paint you have experienced any problems with the blog or its posts, then we do apologise for the inconvenience. We are looking forward to all the changes and improvements and hope you are as well.

In the meantime, here are some construction related phrases for you in Dutch:

• omleiding (detour)
• binnenkort verwacht (coming soon)
• wij zijn snel terug (we’ll be back soon)

Bedankt voor uw begrip! (Thank you for your understanding!)

The Dutch Blog Team