Another test to see if you have good understanding of the Dutch language (and therefore understand this pun).

IS THERE AN ELF IN THIS FOREST? Yes, there are at least eleven!

I guess it doesn't really translate?

Quick question: is "Bos" the word for woods? If so, then it is surprisingly similar to the French "bois", despite that they belong to two very different languages.

That's correct. "bos" translates to "woods" or "small forest". I deem it very well possible the word is derived from the French language, as the influence of French has been great on the Dutch language. It has always been the language of the elite for starters, and shortly after the eighty-years-war many Huguenots who were no longer safe in France fled to the Netherlands where they were safe, and in the Netherlands you can still meet many families with a French surname thanks to that. Although all of the Huguenots' descendants speak Dutch by now, the fact that their ancestors spoke French natively did affect the Dutch language.

There are a lot of French words in Dutch that actually never changed, like "bureau", "cadeau", "trotoir", "toilet", to name a few.

That's interesting! Thanks for telling me!

The French word "mannequin" came by the way from Flemish... The Dutch dialect spoken in Belgium. "Manneke" is the word it came from. It means "little man", but I guess when the French took that word over, the meaning changed a bit, didn't it...

That translation is correct.... If you look at the Dutch text however you see the word "Elf" twice. In Dutch the word "Elf" can refer both the the creature "Elf" as the number "Eleven", but since that is not the case in English, the joke does indeed not translate well, does it?

Now a German would have to confirm this, but I think the same pun would also work in German.

I found pictures of it online. There were 24 books in total and I had four of them. Apparently you can buy the whole set on ebay now for 150€... 😅🙈🙈

Cool.... I should try to see if I can catch few of the original Dutch versions then ;)

It's funny, really. I think these books might be based on the 1985 tv show that was made in Spain by a Canadian company based on the original Dutch books... 😅🙈

Happens more often.... Afred Jodocus Kwak was made by a Japanese Anime studio, while the writer of the original stories is Dutch (Herman van Veen)... And the same writer did make another story of his in an Austrian studio (and thus the series was, even though he played the main character himself, spoken in German).... Funny how things go, eh?

It kinda seems like the world was more comnected then than it is now... Especially Dutch and German relations seem to have been so much better. All the cooperations in television and music and all the Dutch people who became famous over here (and I'm assuming vice versa from one of our past conversations)... It just isn't like that anymore, is it? 🤔

I dunno... In the Netherlands the tax climate is not always very good for creating series and films, and aboard there is, so that makes for many Dutch productions going to an other country for the production a lot cheaper, and thus the series we mentioned are most likely for that reason productions were done in Spain, Japan and Austria.

And well I do know that Rudi Carell was more successful in Germany than the Netherlands, but then again, Paul Verhoeven, famous for many big Hollywood successes was constantly laughed at in the Netherlands until he he was successful in the U.S. And to tell you what, I've seen Rutger Hauer in many English speaking productions, so when he gave an interview to a Dutch journalist, thus speaking Dutch, it just felt awkward to hear him speak Dutch... Can you imagine? Some American guys didn't believe me when I told them that Melisandre (The Red Witch in Game of Thrones) was portrayed by a Dutch actress (Carice van Houten), until they looked it up... I guess their night was dark and full of terrors. So I guess that still happens, but I also think we tend to mention it less... Now in the YouTube era I guess people being famous abroad aren't that special anymore, eh?

You're probably right... And there is a chance I just remember things differently from when I was younger...

Likely.... I also see people to whom nationality is becoming less of an issue more and more. It's just that those people who are very nationalist are shouting more loudly that you easily forget that. And speaking of Game Of Thrones... Aside from the Red Witch (who is Dutch), I know that the actor portraying Jamie Lannister is Danish, but who the hell cares? Both play their roles well and he fans of Game of Thrones love them for that and not for the countries they're from. In the last season of the Dutch show "Wie is de mol?" on of the participants was also Danish, but all I noticed that in was his awkward name, which is far from common in Dutch (although he did write some notes about the possible mole in Danish eventually to prevent people from nosing in his notes... how mean), and none of the fans of the show cared (although some did look for some secret hints in connection with Denmark, as those could be secret hints to him being the mole, but since he wasn't no such hints where there). Indeed when I was younger people being famous in the Netherlands who were not Dutch, was something cared for more. A guy famous for many songs in the Dutch language is known as Drs. P. I never realized that Drs. P. was not Dutch, but Swiss, and I only found out when it was mentioned when his death was announced. I guess that's how it goes, eh?

You summoned me? 😂

I wouldn't say "summoned", but perhaps you can confirm (if you understood the pun above) if the same pun would work in German or not ;)

😅 Yes, pretty much. Elf can mean the fantasy race elf and the number eleven in German as well. 😉

Thank you.... I already knew that "elf" was the German word for the number Eleven. The numbers 4, 8 and 11 are the same in both Dutch and German and I can count from 1 till 100 in German. I only wasn't sure about the "Elf" as a fantasy humanoid creature. :) My German teacher did never cover fantasy creatures in German, for some reason 🤣🤣

😅 yeah, we never discussed that in my Nederlands class either... Or at least I didn't get that far. 🙈

Well, then let's get to that part.... Elf = Elf, Trol = Troll, Gnoom = Gnome, Dwerg = Dwarf, Kabouter = Tiny little man with a red pointy hat (and no English name), Draak = Dragon, Centaur = Centaur, Zeemeermin = Mermaid, Sirene = Siren, Nymf = Nymph

Challenge accepted.
Elf,
Troll,
Gnom,
Zwerg,

technically we don't have a Kabauter in Germany, but there is that one book and tv series "David der Kabauter" which I now suspect to be a Dutch book that has been translated - as a kid I thought it was something like a "Klabautermann", but that's a whole different creature that lives on boats and warns the captain when there's danger and otherwise makes noise - the Kabauter is probably somewhere between a Zwerg and a Gnom and seems like it was the origin for a very German concept of the Gartenzwerg = garden gnome, especially visually and from what I remember of the books I had they also live in nature or gardens,

Drache, sometimes Drachen, depending on regional dialect,

Zentaur,
Meerjungfrau, sometimes Seejungfrau,
Sirene,
Nymphe.

Most words are the same or very similar which is why I could usually understand Dutch texts (like when we would go to Arnhem or Harderwijk) even as a kid but the pronunciation is different enough that one has to get used to it first. 😅

"David der Kabauter" is indeed a translation of "David de Kabouter" by Rien Poortvliet, who wrote more than stories about David, but even two entire kind of informative books about the life of the Kabouter and how they live, and really it has been set up so well, that you cannot help but to believe its all real. I could not find a German article about that book but here's the Dutch one, perhaps you can understand it: https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leven_en_werken_van_de_Kabouter :)
Although you cannot see it in the article the book is full of wonderful artwork. Poortvliet was quite an artist, I tell ya (unfortunately was, as he died of cancer in his sixties).

I didn't know the stories were translated to German, but I'm not surprised, either. And I know I can give translators a headache as I gave kabouters an assisting role in in my novel "De Wraak van Yuleria", as main character Scyndi will hurt her angle very badly and is nursed by kabouters, but as there is not a good word for those in other languages (and I now just used the Dutch word in stead). In English they often translate it as "gnome", but as the gnomes already exist as a different kind of race... That is gonna be a nice challenge. Hahaha :)

The garden gnome is in Dutch often translated as "tuinkabouter". In Dutch gardens often seen as the little guy with the red hat. Although Dwarves are often seen as little people who can reach an adult man's hips, kabouters are in most incarnations small enough to walk over your hand.

I loved those books as a kid. They each came with a cassette tape so you could also listen to it. It was perfect. But when I finally begged my grandma to take me to the store to get more of those books they weren't selling them anymore...

Man, that hurts.... I've seen some animations of David. And you should really see if you can still find the pseudo-scientific book about the Kabouter... It's really a very fun read ;)