Flabbergasted

In the mailbox today:

[...] Ik heb weer een probleem met de simulatie. Half van indicatoren zijn gecalculeerd en andere half niet. Ik weet niet de oorzak. Ik kan niet vinden het in mijn formules. [...]

This is Dutch, there are some mistakes, but most can be easily accounted for if one knows that the author is Russian and that in Russian articles (the, a) simply do not exist. The correct Dutch (articles: het, een) is:

[...] Ik heb weer een probleem met de simulatie. De helft van de indicatoren zijn gecalculeerd en de andere helft niet. Ik weet de oorzaak niet. Ik kan het niet vinden in mijn formules. [...]

The first email in Dutch from a Russian. I'm flabbergasted.

Comments

[Lilia]

Anjo,

do you know what effect this posting has on Russians getting all their courage to write in Dutch? I'm afraid you just make it more scary...

Anyway, I'm hopeless in that respect, in a best case I will start speaking Dutch :)

[Anjo]

Lilia,
I'm a little bit confused about your comment as it was written to ENCOURAGE Russians and other non-Dutch speaking/writing people living in the Netherlands to learn the Dutch language.

Language can be tricky, but if you read the post again carefully I hope you are willing to conclude that I emphasized that the Dutch actually contained very few mistakes and that these mistakes are easily accounted for given the Russian background.

As you probably know it is now the policy of the Dutch government that everybody planning to live in the Netherlands should learn Dutch. I actively support this policy, as you know.

The post was anonymous (and not from Lilia). I have received 10's-100's of mails from the same person in English. Can you not imagine I was flabbergasted ("astonished and [pleasantly] surprised")?