Anyone who’s spoken English with Dutch people will know that they tend to have trouble pronouncing the ‘th’ sound in the English language, turning ‘the’ into ‘de’ and ‘this’ into ‘dis’.
But I just spoke to a Dutchman with a lithp. Seeing as there was also a non-Dutch speaker involved in the conversation, we spoke English. I thought that the Dutchman’s natural talent would make him the only Dutch person in the world able to pronounce the word ‘the’ correctly. But no, to my astonishment, he said ‘dith is not a ferry good idee; I tink we should refer dis to tech support firtht’.
How could such a naturally gifted individual still get it so wrong?
But I just spoke to a Dutchman with a lithp. Seeing as there was also a non-Dutch speaker involved in the conversation, we spoke English. I thought that the Dutchman’s natural talent would make him the only Dutch person in the world able to pronounce the word ‘the’ correctly. But no, to my astonishment, he said ‘dith is not a ferry good idee; I tink we should refer dis to tech support firtht’.
How could such a naturally gifted individual still get it so wrong?
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