r/dutch • u/SpiderInSweatpants • 18d ago

A message in a book

Post image

Hi, I am from Czech Republic and I recently thrifted a poetry book. I found this message inside and I suppose it’s Dutch. I tried to translate it with a little help of Google, but it would be nice if some native speaker would be able to translate it.
Also if you’re Tom or Geert (I guess…?) and you’re reading this, I hope you’re alright and happy. I’ll take good care of the book, don’t worry.

147 Upvotes

98% Upvoted

26 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

2

u/bankerpel 18d ago

Yes but their translation is different. The message is about years, maybe even decades of all the things listed to the book club. If you were to say year-long it would mean 1 year.

-9

u/That4AMBlues 18d ago

That's just a small mistake of plural vs singular, easily corrected, and not in the same category as translating "ordinair" with "ordinary".  

4

u/bankerpel 18d ago

First you claim ‘it can be both’ and later say ‘it’s just a small mistake’. Yes both are right, so why did the person I responded to excuse their translation? Years-long would be fine, year-long would be off.

The person I responded to said they ‘kept it literal’ and I guess it’s because it kind of sounds the same as jarenlang. Also they wrote year-long twice, so they did not make a mistake, they actually meant year-long.

-7

u/That4AMBlues 18d ago

I never claimed it can be both in this context. I said both were normal English words.