Here is another brief (I hope) piece inspired (if that’s the word) by a recent conversation with a fellow Latin teacher. In an attempt to discuss methodology, I thought it might be worthwhile to discuss the presumed end result of five or six years of Latin in high school. Now in The Netherlands there is a centrally coordinated exam, identical for all the students of a given subject in the country, comparable to, but of course different from, the dreaded AP exams in the US. So The Exam is generally considered the most important thing, as a satisfactory result overall gives you access to university (with this particular kind of high school diploma, known in The Netherlands as “vwo”).
But thankfully, some enlightened colleagues do agree that one does not educate students only to pass the exam. My own view is even more liberal: teach the kids a language, Latin for example, properly and the exam shouldn’t be a big deal at all. You do it in passing, so to speak (no pun intended).
So the question is, beyond passing the exam, what does a Latin teacher want for his students after five or six arduous years of study?
“Well,” said this colleague, “it depends. For example, this other colleague hopes that students will become readers.” (Implied, I’m quite sure, is ‘of books in Dutch’.) “I myself,” the colleague continued, “want them to learn to think logically.”
This is no doubt connected to this teacher’s believe in teaching from a grammar point of view, implying that you can not even read a Latin sentence in the order the writer wrote it in (see my recent piece about this on this blog).
I find this so funny, because both views are, to me, so clearly about side effects at best. Hello! Just imagine an English or French or German teacher in The Netherlands saying something similar! Clearly, colleagues in those languages will tell you something like, Well, I’d like my students to be able to follow university classes taught in English (in The Netherlands, for example). Or, I would like them to be able to watch a German police movie without subtitles. Or, Look, I’m quite happy if they can work their way through ordering a meal in a French restaurant. But I mean, something about the actual use of the language.
What should it be in Latin? Being able to translate fifty words of Cicero at a rate of one word per minute? Being able to read a poem by Catullus you’ve studied in class before with a facing translation? Being able to recognize an occasional expression or word from Latin that Dutch has appropriated? In my view, none of these are good enough for five, six years of hard work.
My own take is that being able to read at sight and more or less in real time a passage from, say, the Vulgate or Eutropius would already be something. But, to be honest, I think with a serious change in methodology, the aim can be higher. Reading an average poem or fragment by Ovid at sight, with notes for my part, or perhaps a Latin prose paraphrase. Reading Vergil with the help of a Latin prose paraphrase. A colloquium by Erasmus with some vocabulary help (in Latin). And how about being able to write a paragraph or two in Latin in response to, say, a Caesar, a Pliny, a Sallust?
In any event, the vast majority (my guess is well over 99 %) of the students who sit for the Latin exam here (and the same is true for the AP exam in the US) never ever look at Latin again in their life. That, it seems to me, is an unacceptable net result of five or six years of study, and that’s putting it mildly.
Monday, December 17, 2018
Sunday, December 16, 2018
Motivation v. Method
At one of the schools where I teach a miracle happened. (It’s not at all a miracle, but within the confines of traditional education it darn well is, or should be considered as such.) A student in the fourth year of an “OK” high school type in The Netherlands (“havo,” not bad, but does not grant access to university) is taking a fifth-year Latin class at the highest high school level here (“gymnasium,” roughly comparable to its German counterpart). Note that the kid has not taken any Latin before this fifth year in high school.
How is this possible? The kid learned Latin on his own. No, not with a private teacher. No, not by taking community classes. No Skype lessons either. He Read A Book. Within barely six months he had learned more Latin (very literally) than his now-classmates, who have been sweating on it for three years (Latin starts in the second HS year at this particular school). The colleague who has the kid in class says he translates (a big thing in Latin teaching here in The Netherlands) better than any other student in class.
What would you want to know, I asked some of my friends and colleagues.
What I wanted to know is which book he used.
I asked the teacher whose class he is in. “Oh, some Danish book,” my colleague said. Of course I knew immediately which book the student had been using and everything fell into place as I had expected.
It is true that the student — who is very eloquent, erudite at his own level, and most of al incredibly nice — had been interested in Latin for a while and had occasionally asked my predecessor a few things about Latin. “But really,” he told me, “that was very occasional.” He wanted to really learn it.
So what he did is in itself remarkable. He looked around on the Internet for the best Latin textbook. And found, surprise surprise, Ørberg’s immortal Lingua Latina per se illustrata, the book of choice of so many of us who believe Latin is a language, not grammatical archeology.
Completely on his own the kid worked through the 35 chapters of Familia Romana, the first part of the Ørberg method, in about six months. In the meantime he had learned that there are very good readers to use along with the last part of the book or after finishing it. So he got them and worked through those books, too.
Now to me the most striking proof that this method obviously works extremely well is that the kid is so good at translating. How did he learn it? Not from the Ørberg book, which is completely in Latin. “But,” says the kid, “I understand what the Latin says.” Yeah, right, and obviously he knows Dutch, so he can translate whatever he reads in Latin into Dutch.
It seems so obvious, but that is not at all how 99.99 % of the Dutch students learn Latin (or Greek). They learn it (or people think they do) by what they call “translating,” but what is really substituting Dutch words for Latin. Any reasonable foreign-language teacher will tell you this is downright impossible, with the exception of most Classicists in The Netherlands, the vast majority of whom still think this is the way to go about things.
Then came the moment that I decided to at least address the student’s success in a departmental meeting. I tried my very best to be diplomatic. “I think,” I lied, “that it may be worth asking how this kid was able to pull this off.”
“Motivation,” my colleague said, without loosing a beat.
To me, that was the end of the conversation. Oh, I tried. Of course he’s motivated. But is it not worth looking at the method he used that taught him so well (and, I thought but did not say, kept him motivated, rather than the opposite, which happens to the vast majority of Latin students in our schools). That discussion was very brief. There is no budget for new textbooks. More importantly, the colleague likes the current book, because it has free tests and other allegedly helpful stuff on the Web.
Most importantly, the colleague thought the Ørberg book would be too difficult for our weaker students. Ironically, from some experimenting, I find the opposite to be true: students tended to prefer the early Ørberg chapters, which can very readily be understood on their own terms (in Latin), over the complicated texts in our current book, which can only be “understood” by substituting a Dutch equivalent (often a bad one) for practically every Latin word with the help of a vocabulary list in the margin.
The bigger problem is that by making motivation the decisive factor in learning, one might as well stop discussing methodology altogether. And so you start to understand why the situation with Classical languages in The Netherlands is the way it is. Wait, did I just hear Erasmus and Grotius (or Hugo de Groot, whose name every third-grader in The Netherlands used to know) turn in their graves?
How is this possible? The kid learned Latin on his own. No, not with a private teacher. No, not by taking community classes. No Skype lessons either. He Read A Book. Within barely six months he had learned more Latin (very literally) than his now-classmates, who have been sweating on it for three years (Latin starts in the second HS year at this particular school). The colleague who has the kid in class says he translates (a big thing in Latin teaching here in The Netherlands) better than any other student in class.
What would you want to know, I asked some of my friends and colleagues.
What I wanted to know is which book he used.
I asked the teacher whose class he is in. “Oh, some Danish book,” my colleague said. Of course I knew immediately which book the student had been using and everything fell into place as I had expected.
It is true that the student — who is very eloquent, erudite at his own level, and most of al incredibly nice — had been interested in Latin for a while and had occasionally asked my predecessor a few things about Latin. “But really,” he told me, “that was very occasional.” He wanted to really learn it.
So what he did is in itself remarkable. He looked around on the Internet for the best Latin textbook. And found, surprise surprise, Ørberg’s immortal Lingua Latina per se illustrata, the book of choice of so many of us who believe Latin is a language, not grammatical archeology.
Completely on his own the kid worked through the 35 chapters of Familia Romana, the first part of the Ørberg method, in about six months. In the meantime he had learned that there are very good readers to use along with the last part of the book or after finishing it. So he got them and worked through those books, too.
Now to me the most striking proof that this method obviously works extremely well is that the kid is so good at translating. How did he learn it? Not from the Ørberg book, which is completely in Latin. “But,” says the kid, “I understand what the Latin says.” Yeah, right, and obviously he knows Dutch, so he can translate whatever he reads in Latin into Dutch.
It seems so obvious, but that is not at all how 99.99 % of the Dutch students learn Latin (or Greek). They learn it (or people think they do) by what they call “translating,” but what is really substituting Dutch words for Latin. Any reasonable foreign-language teacher will tell you this is downright impossible, with the exception of most Classicists in The Netherlands, the vast majority of whom still think this is the way to go about things.
Then came the moment that I decided to at least address the student’s success in a departmental meeting. I tried my very best to be diplomatic. “I think,” I lied, “that it may be worth asking how this kid was able to pull this off.”
“Motivation,” my colleague said, without loosing a beat.
To me, that was the end of the conversation. Oh, I tried. Of course he’s motivated. But is it not worth looking at the method he used that taught him so well (and, I thought but did not say, kept him motivated, rather than the opposite, which happens to the vast majority of Latin students in our schools). That discussion was very brief. There is no budget for new textbooks. More importantly, the colleague likes the current book, because it has free tests and other allegedly helpful stuff on the Web.
Most importantly, the colleague thought the Ørberg book would be too difficult for our weaker students. Ironically, from some experimenting, I find the opposite to be true: students tended to prefer the early Ørberg chapters, which can very readily be understood on their own terms (in Latin), over the complicated texts in our current book, which can only be “understood” by substituting a Dutch equivalent (often a bad one) for practically every Latin word with the help of a vocabulary list in the margin.
The bigger problem is that by making motivation the decisive factor in learning, one might as well stop discussing methodology altogether. And so you start to understand why the situation with Classical languages in The Netherlands is the way it is. Wait, did I just hear Erasmus and Grotius (or Hugo de Groot, whose name every third-grader in The Netherlands used to know) turn in their graves?
Wednesday, December 12, 2018
Reading Latin
I can almost not believe I’m writing this, it’s so surreal (but not nice, fellow Notting Hill fans).
A brief prologue for full disclosure: I learned Latin for six years in high school. That school was and is considered excellent; the teachers were extremely competent (one of them also taught in university); and in some years, we had as many as six class periods each devoted to both Latin and Greek. My final grades were more than adequate, with particularly good notes for the final exams, especially in Greek.
I remember that, after I finished high school, I was quite disappointed that, despite all those hours and decent grades, I was still utterly unable to read Latin (forget Greek) independently. Many years later, call it chance if you will, I was asked to teach Latin, took on the challenge, and soon started to teach myself Latin with the eminent Lingua Latina per se illustrata series. I finally learned how to actually read (and later also write and speak) Latin.
After teaching Latin in the US and Australia, in schools and universities, to kids and adults for a total of some ten years, I now find myself teaching in my home country. Although that means compromising my teaching style in a many ways, I have also been encouraged to speak Latin in class. So that’s nice.
But of course, not everybody is happy. A colleague who visited a class expressed surprise at my speaking Latin, even though it concerned only reading out loud. “You can not,” said the colleague, as if patiently explaining one of the most basic laws of the universe, “read Latin from left to right.”
Pardon me?
“With the modern languages,” the colleague explains, “it is possible, because the word order is the same.” As in Dutch, it goes without saying.
How to answer? I really don’t know. Do I read Latin from left to right? Why of course I do, how else? I even speak Latin from left to right! What am I supposed to do? Think about the verb first and then save it for last? It may even be that the brain actually works that way, who the heck knows. But even if it does, sorry, when I speak Latin, I just speak Latin. (Of course that does not mean I can not think about a word or a sentence before speaking.)
Of course what’s behind this, let’s say, misunderstanding is a very different way of thinking about Latin. In the eyes of many, Latin is not really a language, merely a (relatively very small) corpus of texts that students translate into Dutch with such grave difficulty that they themselves often don’t understand their own so-called translations. (Evidently translating a text that you don’t understand is impossible, which is why such pieces of Dutch un-prose should not be called translations to begin with, but that’s a different story.)
I have often written stories in Latin and recently published Latin translations of some short stories by legendary Dutch writer Simon Carmiggelt. But why? “Why would you want to write Latin,” the aforementioned colleague opined. “Do you think you can write better than the Romans?” Why? Well, perhaps because it’s fun? And, I mean, Erasmus wrote Latin, didn’t he? And better than many a Roman, I may add. J.S. Bach, on the other hand, not only created the fugue as we know it, he also brought it to Absolute Perfection (note capitals A and P) within a decade or two, spending the rest of his life making clear once and for all that no-one would ever be able to come even remotely close. But that hasn’t stopped generations of composers from trying!
Just imagine the English teacher saying, Look guys, why write English? Do you really think you can do better than a Shakespeare, a Dickens, a J.D. Salinger? And what about the Russian, Chinese, or even Italian teacher who explains you could never read that language from left to right because the word order is different from Dutch?
A brief prologue for full disclosure: I learned Latin for six years in high school. That school was and is considered excellent; the teachers were extremely competent (one of them also taught in university); and in some years, we had as many as six class periods each devoted to both Latin and Greek. My final grades were more than adequate, with particularly good notes for the final exams, especially in Greek.
I remember that, after I finished high school, I was quite disappointed that, despite all those hours and decent grades, I was still utterly unable to read Latin (forget Greek) independently. Many years later, call it chance if you will, I was asked to teach Latin, took on the challenge, and soon started to teach myself Latin with the eminent Lingua Latina per se illustrata series. I finally learned how to actually read (and later also write and speak) Latin.
After teaching Latin in the US and Australia, in schools and universities, to kids and adults for a total of some ten years, I now find myself teaching in my home country. Although that means compromising my teaching style in a many ways, I have also been encouraged to speak Latin in class. So that’s nice.
But of course, not everybody is happy. A colleague who visited a class expressed surprise at my speaking Latin, even though it concerned only reading out loud. “You can not,” said the colleague, as if patiently explaining one of the most basic laws of the universe, “read Latin from left to right.”
Pardon me?
“With the modern languages,” the colleague explains, “it is possible, because the word order is the same.” As in Dutch, it goes without saying.
How to answer? I really don’t know. Do I read Latin from left to right? Why of course I do, how else? I even speak Latin from left to right! What am I supposed to do? Think about the verb first and then save it for last? It may even be that the brain actually works that way, who the heck knows. But even if it does, sorry, when I speak Latin, I just speak Latin. (Of course that does not mean I can not think about a word or a sentence before speaking.)
Of course what’s behind this, let’s say, misunderstanding is a very different way of thinking about Latin. In the eyes of many, Latin is not really a language, merely a (relatively very small) corpus of texts that students translate into Dutch with such grave difficulty that they themselves often don’t understand their own so-called translations. (Evidently translating a text that you don’t understand is impossible, which is why such pieces of Dutch un-prose should not be called translations to begin with, but that’s a different story.)
I have often written stories in Latin and recently published Latin translations of some short stories by legendary Dutch writer Simon Carmiggelt. But why? “Why would you want to write Latin,” the aforementioned colleague opined. “Do you think you can write better than the Romans?” Why? Well, perhaps because it’s fun? And, I mean, Erasmus wrote Latin, didn’t he? And better than many a Roman, I may add. J.S. Bach, on the other hand, not only created the fugue as we know it, he also brought it to Absolute Perfection (note capitals A and P) within a decade or two, spending the rest of his life making clear once and for all that no-one would ever be able to come even remotely close. But that hasn’t stopped generations of composers from trying!
Just imagine the English teacher saying, Look guys, why write English? Do you really think you can do better than a Shakespeare, a Dickens, a J.D. Salinger? And what about the Russian, Chinese, or even Italian teacher who explains you could never read that language from left to right because the word order is different from Dutch?
Saturday, December 8, 2018
Astrid
Time flies when you’re having fun. In fact, it also flies if you simply work a lot (even if it is not always fun). I almost can’t believe I’ve been in Europe for well over half a year, and living in Germany (just across the Dutch border) for almost four months.
When I first came to the area, I thought it was great to have all these big cities easily within reach. Ironically, I found there was quite enough to do in town I live in, but tonight, I finally made it to Düsseldorf. I found a hip and very nice little restaurant that specializes in Spätzle (plus it’s organic and everything) and with a bit of asking I managed to find my way to a nice movie place that’s lies a bit hidden in one of those little alleys you only find in old European cities.
Just the other day, this new movie came out about Astrid Lindgren, the great Swedish writer, probably most famous for creating the immortal Pippi Longstocking. Before the doors opened, I had my espresso in the foyer, picked up a brochure about the film (it’s simply, beautifully, and appropriately called Astrid) and, a bit lost in my new environment, glanced at it a bit. A girl who looked like the granddaughter of Pippi walked by. Was she 12, 13? Or even younger but just a very smart cookie? I suspect the latter. “Are you going to see that film,” she asked as if it were the most normal thing for her to talk to a complete stranger, obviously significantly older than her dad, whom I saw smiling behind her.
Once I got over my surprise I said, “Yes, and how about you? Have you seen it already?” “Yes,” she said. “It’s very, very good.” She looked at the brochure in my hand. “That,” she pointed at a beautiful picture, “comes at the very end.” “Ah. That’s good to know,” I said. “Yes,” she said. “It’s really, really good.” “Have you read her books,” I inquired, in an attempt to continue the unusual conversation. Within seconds she gave a complete list of all the Lindgren she had read, in passing explaining to me how one book is called such in Swedish, but so in German. “Perhaps you’ll be a writer yourself one day,” I quipped, somewhat unsuccessfully, although I did see her dad smiling.
Well, what can I say. The girl couldn’t have been more right about the movie. O my goodness. It made you think that not only there’s perhaps hope for your own life, but perhaps, perhaps there is even hope for a world that’s going more insane by the day. If Astrid could do all that barely out of her teens, why then, who’s complaining when life gets a bit funky sometimes?
Alba August, the actress playing the role of young Lindgren (before she became Lindgren, in fact), has received many accolades, and rightly so, it’s in a word marvelous. But how they get the toddler to act as Lindgren’s three-year-old kid is a total mystery to me. Striking. Many other very fine roles, including Lindgren’s mother.
One aspect of the story (at least in the movie, who knows whether this is historically accurate or not) will, I think, make some viewers uncomfortable. In the film, it’s emphatically Lindgren who flirts with her much older boss, the editor of the local newspaper. It’s emphatically Lindgren who seduces him. In fact, only slightly less obvious, one gets the strong impression that it is Lindgren who wants to carry the guy’s child, and not only, I think, out of pity.
The film will undoubtedly, as the saying goes, come to a theater near you. You must go see it. I’m tipping on a handful of Oscars, at very least one for August and one for the film maker, Pernille Fischer Christensen.
When I first came to the area, I thought it was great to have all these big cities easily within reach. Ironically, I found there was quite enough to do in town I live in, but tonight, I finally made it to Düsseldorf. I found a hip and very nice little restaurant that specializes in Spätzle (plus it’s organic and everything) and with a bit of asking I managed to find my way to a nice movie place that’s lies a bit hidden in one of those little alleys you only find in old European cities.
Just the other day, this new movie came out about Astrid Lindgren, the great Swedish writer, probably most famous for creating the immortal Pippi Longstocking. Before the doors opened, I had my espresso in the foyer, picked up a brochure about the film (it’s simply, beautifully, and appropriately called Astrid) and, a bit lost in my new environment, glanced at it a bit. A girl who looked like the granddaughter of Pippi walked by. Was she 12, 13? Or even younger but just a very smart cookie? I suspect the latter. “Are you going to see that film,” she asked as if it were the most normal thing for her to talk to a complete stranger, obviously significantly older than her dad, whom I saw smiling behind her.
Once I got over my surprise I said, “Yes, and how about you? Have you seen it already?” “Yes,” she said. “It’s very, very good.” She looked at the brochure in my hand. “That,” she pointed at a beautiful picture, “comes at the very end.” “Ah. That’s good to know,” I said. “Yes,” she said. “It’s really, really good.” “Have you read her books,” I inquired, in an attempt to continue the unusual conversation. Within seconds she gave a complete list of all the Lindgren she had read, in passing explaining to me how one book is called such in Swedish, but so in German. “Perhaps you’ll be a writer yourself one day,” I quipped, somewhat unsuccessfully, although I did see her dad smiling.
Well, what can I say. The girl couldn’t have been more right about the movie. O my goodness. It made you think that not only there’s perhaps hope for your own life, but perhaps, perhaps there is even hope for a world that’s going more insane by the day. If Astrid could do all that barely out of her teens, why then, who’s complaining when life gets a bit funky sometimes?
Alba August, the actress playing the role of young Lindgren (before she became Lindgren, in fact), has received many accolades, and rightly so, it’s in a word marvelous. But how they get the toddler to act as Lindgren’s three-year-old kid is a total mystery to me. Striking. Many other very fine roles, including Lindgren’s mother.
One aspect of the story (at least in the movie, who knows whether this is historically accurate or not) will, I think, make some viewers uncomfortable. In the film, it’s emphatically Lindgren who flirts with her much older boss, the editor of the local newspaper. It’s emphatically Lindgren who seduces him. In fact, only slightly less obvious, one gets the strong impression that it is Lindgren who wants to carry the guy’s child, and not only, I think, out of pity.
The film will undoubtedly, as the saying goes, come to a theater near you. You must go see it. I’m tipping on a handful of Oscars, at very least one for August and one for the film maker, Pernille Fischer Christensen.
Saturday, July 7, 2018
Conversational Medicine
I spent a day at the Amsterdam AMC, the
university hospital, in essence for a relatively complicated eye
operation, a stressful thing in itself (to put it mildly) and
worsened by a troublesome history in that eye and a number of current
circumstances. But the main event was preceeded by many hours of
administrative humbug and repeat tests that made one long for the
days of the
simple-but-knowledgeable-and-most-of-all-kind-and-understanding
country doctor—a James Herriott for humans, essentially, or a Doc
Martin (deliciously rude, but heart in the right place). But alas,
those days seem to have long gone, and likely gone forever, just like
the days people played piano duet or string quartet at night instead
of watching indiscribable nonsense on television.
Or perhaps not completely. Thanks to
this mini medical odyssey around the AMC, I now realize how perhaps
almost all the doctors, many of the nurses, and even many
secretaries are aware of how disorganized the place is. Nobody can do
anything about it, but many of them express dissatisfaction and
disappointment about it, which often translates into highly ironic,
almost cynical jokes.
But more importantly, one young doctor,
the assistant who was the first of three eye doctors to see me today
and who took the lion’s share of taking my history, effectively
made my day by saying something I had to boastfully (sorry) write
this piece about.
The doc asked whether I had had light
flashes and/or moments that I did not see anything with the eye in
question. That was a nice surprise, because none of the four (highly
qualified) eye doctors who had seen me yesterday had asked that. (By
the way, I have now been seen by a total of seven eye doctors in less
than 36 hours, one calling my eye “really interesting,” wholly
aptly, I guess.) In any event, as I started to explain my experience
of seeing those flashes, the young doctor interrupted me.
“But wait,” he said, “are you
actually a professional writer?” (It sounds even better in Dutch, I
think: “Bent u schrijver dan, van beroep?”)
“No,” I said, “but I do like
writing, and I consider that a big compliment. Thank you.”
“I mean,” he said, “you explain
it so vividly, it sounded like a writer.”
I have had compliments for
my writing from time to time, but this was a whole new experience. Most of
all, the hint at personal interest between that one doctor and an
admittedly unusual patient made the whole day a little bit easier to
bear.
Plus it gave me a reason to sit down and write this little piece with my pirate patch still on.
Plus it gave me a reason to sit down and write this little piece with my pirate patch still on.
Thursday, July 5, 2018
Nice!
I’ve been walking (mostly biking actually) around in The Netherlands for about eight weeks now after an almost twenty-year absence, interrupted only by very brief and infrequent visits (bliksembezoeken or “lightning visits”). My Dutch is still quite adequate, I like to think; some people do comment on a very slight American touch in my pronunciation—not my usage, I think—but interestingly only after I have already told that I have lived in the US for nearly twenty years.
Of course, the Dutch have been busy speaking Dutch in The Netherlands, and so, they all use a number of interesting expressions I am slowly getting used to. I thought I write a few salient examples down here, for the benefit of fellow ex-patriots or other learners of the beautiful Dutch language.
Back in the day, if you wanted to wish somebody a pleasant day or encourage him/her to enjoy his/her weekend, you said (I remember it well): “Nog een prettige dag verder,” or “Prettig weekeinde” (that word is pronounced as weekend, but we learned it was more elegant to spell it in Dutch anyway).
OK, forget prettig these days. For some reasons beyond my grasp, the Dutch have grown to tremendously dislike the word. (Is it because it reminds them of pretty? But then what’s wrong with pretty?) These days, everybody—and I mean everybody—wishes you “een fijne dag,” “een fijn weekeinde,” “een fijne avond,” etc. etc. I refuse to use it myself, but at least I’ve managed to say “Jij ook” (you too; and yes, the use of the informal pronoun je/jij instead of formal u has become much more common, to the point it’s almost getting rude, IMHO).
The Dutch pay with their card much, much more often than anybody I’ve seen in the US. This is known as pinnen (“to pin,” referring of course to the use of the PIN code). In fact in many places pinnen is not only the preferred, but exclusive way of payment. But if you’re lucky, you can still bay cash for your coffee and croissantje. When paying wiht exact change or even when paying at all, the person will almost 100 % certainly say “Helemaal goed,” “Completely fine.” I think this is the equivalent of prima in the old days.
Why the helemaal? Isnt’t goed good enough? Apparently not, and many good things are simply not good enough by themselves in The Netherlands. A teacher is not simply trots (“proud”) of his students, but megatrots (“mega proud”; mega of course is Greek for “big time” or—in fashionable US English—“bigly”), even if the results of a test are nothing special. Dutch always had the fun word leuk (“fun,” but with many connotations; “een leuke jongen” is not just a fun guy, but quite attractive to the speaker), but this morning I overheard two youngish ladies talk about a “superleuke jongen.”
I friend had already told me about the fashionable use of “nice” in Dutch. My friend tells me it’s predominantly used by women in a higher income class, and the word is a sentence by itself, commenting on something perceived as extremely positive mentioned by the conversation partner. “Nice!” I tried it once. “Oh,” said my friend, “but you also have to pull up your eyebrows when saying it.” I tried it. “Nice!”
“Nice!” my friend said, expressively raising her eyebrows in return.
Of course, the Dutch have been busy speaking Dutch in The Netherlands, and so, they all use a number of interesting expressions I am slowly getting used to. I thought I write a few salient examples down here, for the benefit of fellow ex-patriots or other learners of the beautiful Dutch language.
Back in the day, if you wanted to wish somebody a pleasant day or encourage him/her to enjoy his/her weekend, you said (I remember it well): “Nog een prettige dag verder,” or “Prettig weekeinde” (that word is pronounced as weekend, but we learned it was more elegant to spell it in Dutch anyway).
OK, forget prettig these days. For some reasons beyond my grasp, the Dutch have grown to tremendously dislike the word. (Is it because it reminds them of pretty? But then what’s wrong with pretty?) These days, everybody—and I mean everybody—wishes you “een fijne dag,” “een fijn weekeinde,” “een fijne avond,” etc. etc. I refuse to use it myself, but at least I’ve managed to say “Jij ook” (you too; and yes, the use of the informal pronoun je/jij instead of formal u has become much more common, to the point it’s almost getting rude, IMHO).
The Dutch pay with their card much, much more often than anybody I’ve seen in the US. This is known as pinnen (“to pin,” referring of course to the use of the PIN code). In fact in many places pinnen is not only the preferred, but exclusive way of payment. But if you’re lucky, you can still bay cash for your coffee and croissantje. When paying wiht exact change or even when paying at all, the person will almost 100 % certainly say “Helemaal goed,” “Completely fine.” I think this is the equivalent of prima in the old days.
Why the helemaal? Isnt’t goed good enough? Apparently not, and many good things are simply not good enough by themselves in The Netherlands. A teacher is not simply trots (“proud”) of his students, but megatrots (“mega proud”; mega of course is Greek for “big time” or—in fashionable US English—“bigly”), even if the results of a test are nothing special. Dutch always had the fun word leuk (“fun,” but with many connotations; “een leuke jongen” is not just a fun guy, but quite attractive to the speaker), but this morning I overheard two youngish ladies talk about a “superleuke jongen.”
I friend had already told me about the fashionable use of “nice” in Dutch. My friend tells me it’s predominantly used by women in a higher income class, and the word is a sentence by itself, commenting on something perceived as extremely positive mentioned by the conversation partner. “Nice!” I tried it once. “Oh,” said my friend, “but you also have to pull up your eyebrows when saying it.” I tried it. “Nice!”
“Nice!” my friend said, expressively raising her eyebrows in return.
Saturday, June 30, 2018
Remembering Kee (2): The Solo Viola
I feel incredibly privileged to have been able to study for two years with Piet Kee at what was then called Sweelinck Conservatorium Amsterdam. (Unfortunately, the name of the great Amsterdam composer disappeared from the name of the school following a merger with the Hilversums Conservatorium in 1994.)
Many fellow students, back then or later, often privately (as students do), sometimes very publicly, have expressed dissatisfaction with Kee as a teacher. “It must always have been a tremendous burden to him,” I remember one excellent former Kee student—now a very prominent Dutch organist—saying, back in the day. Another very prominent international student has stated rather publicly that Kee, while evidently an excellent musician, could not teach at all. I humbly disagree, and here is one small example of how Kee taught in a manner that, at least to me, was fascinating, beautiful, and highly effective.
Many Kee students studied the Prelude to the Pange lingua by Zoltán Kodály in their first year at the conservatory. (Kee had recorded the Prelude himself at St. Bavo’s; I don’t recall having ever heard another organist play it in concert, but it is a very beautiful short work that is worth revisiting, I think.)
It was admittedly not so terribly easy to play this colorful work beautifully at the 1950s Flentrop in Amsterdam South (where Kee famously taught for many years, presumably because he particularly liked the action of the instrument). Moreover, I had really no clue what to do with a Neoclassical work with elements reminiscent of, say, Ravel. On the top of the last page, there was a rather high solo in the left hand, which I obviously had difficulty with.
“Look,” said Kee. “Such a beautiful little solo! Think of it as a viola solo in an orchestral piece.” (As always when I cite Kee here, please note that I cite from memory after many years; moreover, I do my best to translate citations into idiomatic English.)
At 18 I found that such a beautiful and enlightening remark. I remember smiling; Kee, of course, observed my reaction. “I see that appeals to you,” he said, I suppose not altogether displeased. “Why don’t you play it one more time.” I did, and of course it now was so much better (not that I noticed that myself, but I noticed very little back then).
Many fellow students, back then or later, often privately (as students do), sometimes very publicly, have expressed dissatisfaction with Kee as a teacher. “It must always have been a tremendous burden to him,” I remember one excellent former Kee student—now a very prominent Dutch organist—saying, back in the day. Another very prominent international student has stated rather publicly that Kee, while evidently an excellent musician, could not teach at all. I humbly disagree, and here is one small example of how Kee taught in a manner that, at least to me, was fascinating, beautiful, and highly effective.
Many Kee students studied the Prelude to the Pange lingua by Zoltán Kodály in their first year at the conservatory. (Kee had recorded the Prelude himself at St. Bavo’s; I don’t recall having ever heard another organist play it in concert, but it is a very beautiful short work that is worth revisiting, I think.)
It was admittedly not so terribly easy to play this colorful work beautifully at the 1950s Flentrop in Amsterdam South (where Kee famously taught for many years, presumably because he particularly liked the action of the instrument). Moreover, I had really no clue what to do with a Neoclassical work with elements reminiscent of, say, Ravel. On the top of the last page, there was a rather high solo in the left hand, which I obviously had difficulty with.
“Look,” said Kee. “Such a beautiful little solo! Think of it as a viola solo in an orchestral piece.” (As always when I cite Kee here, please note that I cite from memory after many years; moreover, I do my best to translate citations into idiomatic English.)
At 18 I found that such a beautiful and enlightening remark. I remember smiling; Kee, of course, observed my reaction. “I see that appeals to you,” he said, I suppose not altogether displeased. “Why don’t you play it one more time.” I did, and of course it now was so much better (not that I noticed that myself, but I noticed very little back then).
Friday, June 29, 2018
Remembering Kee (1): At the Cinema
When I came back to The Netherlands in mid-May of this year, it was very much on my mind to visit my old organ teacher Piet Kee. But the first weeks were busy, and I figured there was no hurry in contacting Kee; yes, he was 90 years old, but since his dad had made it to 99, it seemed reasonable to expect that Piet would still be with us for quite a while.
Boy, was that a mistake. Kee passed away within two weeks of my being back in Haarlem.
That’s now almost exactly a month ago and I have spoken about Kee quite a bit with colleagues and close friends. Many, many memories, and my intention is to write them down here, a bit as I get to them (or as they get to me). Here is a first one.
I was reminded of this when I went to see a movie in Haarlem’s outstanding independent cinema, the Filmschuur. We saw The Bookshop, a nice enough movie that I enjoyed watching for the second time, this time in the company of a friend. At the end, as it happens with movies, the titles rolled down the screen. People start leaving the room. We stay seated a little longer.
“Many years ago,” I tell my younger friend, “I went to see a movie in the old Filmschuur, over in the Smedestraat. An Italian movie, Tuscany, beautiful pictures, but goodness knows what it was about. One of those movies.
“Anyway, I walk into the cinema, and there are Piet Kee and his wife. I sit down next to them, how could I not, they were friendly, both parties bien étonnés de se trouver ensemble, so to speak.
“At the end of the film, like now”—I said to my friend—“the titles roll down the screen. People start leaving, but not Piet Kee and his wife, nor, of course, I.
“Piet Kee turns to me. ‘Ik heb zo’n hekel aan mensen die meteen weglopen,’ he says, somewhat quietly, but nonetheless very clearly.” I hate people who walk out immediately (although admittedly ‘hate’ sounds little too harsh in English.)
“I have often thought about that,” I said to my friend. “Of course, it had nothing to do with music, but in a way everything with Piet Kee’s artistry. Respect for the work of art. For the music. For the performance. And for the performer, of course.”
My friend encouraged me to blog about my memories of Kee, so thanks to her, there’s the first one. Many to come.
Boy, was that a mistake. Kee passed away within two weeks of my being back in Haarlem.
That’s now almost exactly a month ago and I have spoken about Kee quite a bit with colleagues and close friends. Many, many memories, and my intention is to write them down here, a bit as I get to them (or as they get to me). Here is a first one.
I was reminded of this when I went to see a movie in Haarlem’s outstanding independent cinema, the Filmschuur. We saw The Bookshop, a nice enough movie that I enjoyed watching for the second time, this time in the company of a friend. At the end, as it happens with movies, the titles rolled down the screen. People start leaving the room. We stay seated a little longer.
“Many years ago,” I tell my younger friend, “I went to see a movie in the old Filmschuur, over in the Smedestraat. An Italian movie, Tuscany, beautiful pictures, but goodness knows what it was about. One of those movies.
“Anyway, I walk into the cinema, and there are Piet Kee and his wife. I sit down next to them, how could I not, they were friendly, both parties bien étonnés de se trouver ensemble, so to speak.
“At the end of the film, like now”—I said to my friend—“the titles roll down the screen. People start leaving, but not Piet Kee and his wife, nor, of course, I.
“Piet Kee turns to me. ‘Ik heb zo’n hekel aan mensen die meteen weglopen,’ he says, somewhat quietly, but nonetheless very clearly.” I hate people who walk out immediately (although admittedly ‘hate’ sounds little too harsh in English.)
“I have often thought about that,” I said to my friend. “Of course, it had nothing to do with music, but in a way everything with Piet Kee’s artistry. Respect for the work of art. For the music. For the performance. And for the performer, of course.”
My friend encouraged me to blog about my memories of Kee, so thanks to her, there’s the first one. Many to come.
Polleke
A while ago, when I taught third-year French to an interesting mix of students in America, I somehow got the idea that it would be fun to read some really good Dutch children’s books in French. I found the first two of Guus Kuijer’s (possibly the foremost Dutch children’s author of the fin de siècle) Polleke cycle in what are in my view excellent French translations and very much enjoyed reading them. Kuijer is a master in discussing very serious matters for a young audience in a manner that is both serious and playful, no mean feat, as they say.
I could not find the remaining three French Pollekes (although I now see that all five books in the series have indeed been translated), so now that I’m back in The Netherlands, I finally walked into the nearest independent bookstore, Gillissen on de Rijksstraatweg in Haarlem Noord. Polleke was not on the shelf, but the friendly bookseller offered to order it for me. “It’ll be here tomorrow after three o’clock.”
It’s now tomorrow 6:30 PM and I just started reading the third Polleke book, Het geluk komt als de donder. I made it to page 3 and already I have to interrupt my reading to write this little piece. I could not have written all of this introduction, all you really need to know is what Polleke writes (the books are written in the first person, very effectively) at the bottom of that page 3. Here it comes, with my own translation:
Soms lijkt het of er overal oorlog is, behalve hier.
Sometimes it seems as if it’s war everywhere, except here.
“Hier/“here” is The Netherlands, of course, and one only wishes it were true. Amsterdam just got a new mayor, a woman just two weeks my senior and from my hometown, a prominent member of the “green-left” party in The Netherlands. Already not only the Dutch capital, but the whole nation seems to be divided about the new mayor, and in no uncertain terms.
But perhaps this is nothing compared to what’s going on in other parts of the worlds at the moment.
I could not find the remaining three French Pollekes (although I now see that all five books in the series have indeed been translated), so now that I’m back in The Netherlands, I finally walked into the nearest independent bookstore, Gillissen on de Rijksstraatweg in Haarlem Noord. Polleke was not on the shelf, but the friendly bookseller offered to order it for me. “It’ll be here tomorrow after three o’clock.”
It’s now tomorrow 6:30 PM and I just started reading the third Polleke book, Het geluk komt als de donder. I made it to page 3 and already I have to interrupt my reading to write this little piece. I could not have written all of this introduction, all you really need to know is what Polleke writes (the books are written in the first person, very effectively) at the bottom of that page 3. Here it comes, with my own translation:
Soms lijkt het of er overal oorlog is, behalve hier.
Sometimes it seems as if it’s war everywhere, except here.
“Hier/“here” is The Netherlands, of course, and one only wishes it were true. Amsterdam just got a new mayor, a woman just two weeks my senior and from my hometown, a prominent member of the “green-left” party in The Netherlands. Already not only the Dutch capital, but the whole nation seems to be divided about the new mayor, and in no uncertain terms.
But perhaps this is nothing compared to what’s going on in other parts of the worlds at the moment.
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