No matter how good your Dutch becomes, there are always words which it is downright impossible to translate. Here are a few of them.

Lesson 54: six words and a gesture we can’t translate

Hè hè
Depending on how you say this expresses relief at a job well done or the end to something strenuous, like an afternoon’s shopping. You sit down, take off your shoes and utter a heartfelt hè hè. If someone says (Ja) hè hè in an irritated tone it means you are stating the obvious.

Ja, ja
Denotes disbelief. Pull the other one.

Gedogen
Turning a blind eye or tacitly allowing something. The Netherlands has a drugs gedoog policy, for example. The possession of up to five grammes of hashish or marihuana is illegal but the authorities choose not to prosecute even though they know what you’ve got in your pocket.

Lots more things have also qualified to be ignored and it is widely used by officialdom as a way of getting round difficult questions.

The concept of gedogen has a long history in the Netherlands. The Calvinists of the Dutch Republic did not allow the Catholics, or any other faiths, to worship publicly but turned a blind eye to the celebration of mass in schuilkerken or hidden churches.

That weird gesture
The Dutch also have a hand gesture that is uniquely theirs. Place your hand next to your cheek as if you were going to slap it. Make a waving motion and pull a happy face. You are now saying that what you have in your bulging cheeks is very tasty indeed, or lekker (but only in the food sense of lekker).

Beleg
Sandwich fillings doesn’t cover it because a boterham, or a single slice of bread, is not strictly speaking a sandwich and can’t be filled unless you fold it in half. ‘The stuff you put on a slice of bread’ is the nearest thing. Beleg is an essential part of Dutch lunch and can mean anything, from chicken curry mush to slices of ham and the dreaded smeerkaas (spreading cheese).

Gezellig
A gezel was an apprentice in medieval times and we still use the word levensgezel for someone who accompanies you on the journey of life. In other words, your better half.

Cozy? definitely not!

Conviviality, the Dickensian kind, comes close to its meaning with its emphasis on having a jolly time in the company of friends. No one would say how convivial, however, the way the Dutch say Hè gezellig.

The word may be untranslatable, but it is so essential, we devoted an entire lesson to it.

Uitwaaien to take a walk in a strong wind, often along the sea shore. Although the dictionaries translate this as ‘catching a breath of fresh air’, uitwaaien or even better lekker uitwaaien has a much blustery meaning.

Like gezellig, uitwaaien has been seized upon by foreign “influencers” as a lifestyle trend.