Double Dutch

Anything that can go wrong will go wrong (and at the worst possible moment).?Murphy's Law applies to just about anything, including languages. So what could go wrong in language learning? Well, anything dissimilar, most likely. For language learners to avoid speaking double Dutch English, they'd better learn the ropes right away.

It's not the similarities that are difficult for language learners, but the differences. Speaking a foreign language would be easy if it merely required speaking your mother tongue with different words. So in learning any new language, it always pays to focus on what makes it unique.?

One of the principal features is always word order. And unless instructed otherwise, students will try and form English sentences like they do in their mother tongue. Then you might hear Dutch speakers of English say *I have yesterday on school a sandwich cheese eaten.?There's quite enough wrong with this sentence as it is, and some double Dutch English can be even worse.?

Double Dutch - among other things: 
~ unintelligible or garbled speech or language, gibberish 
~ a jumping game played with two skipping ropes swung in opposite directions?        

For starters, Dutch, like German, allows for the Main Verb to come at the far end of a long sentence instead of before Object, Place and Time. English doesn't. Next, adverbials of Time and Place may end up in unspeakable positions. So until students learn about the standard pattern SvVOPT, they'll mix up their English word order and make native speakers flinch.

Then there are differences in vocabulary and idiom to navigate. They'll not only mess up the marriage of cheese and sandwich, but they'll typically use the wrong preposition and end up on the roof instead of in the cafeteria. I usually make a drawing on the whiteboard or may even jump up on a table. I'll do anything to imprint this image in their minds: you don't want to end up on the roof.

Last but not least, there's the different use of tenses. As the frightful example sentence shows, the adverbial?yesterday?and Present Perfect tense don't bite each other in a Dutch sentence. It's the usual Dutch way of referring to past events. In (British) English, however, that's nothing short of mortal sin.?

So students must learn several things before their sentences come even close to resembling English. Many of the points seem perfectly logical but aren't if your native language does things differently.?

Vocab and idiom ask for lots of practice, as in any language. But the most significant structural aspects of English are easily found in SvVOPT. It explains English word order as well as its standard pattern of verb forms. As such, it's an indispensable lifeline for all learners of English.?

So for language learners to avoid speaking double Dutch English, they'd better learn the ropes right away. SvVOPT rules!

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