traffic jam, queue [noun] [de file, de files]

Dutch traffic jams are a daily source of great annoyance. Every year the total amount of cars queueing up increases significantly.

Examples:
– "Er zijn vandaag veel files door het slechte weer."
("There are a lot of traffic jams today due to the bad weather.")

– "Er staat een ongebruikelijk file op de N44 door een ongeval."
("There’s an unusual traffic jam at the N44 road due to an accident." Literally: "There stands a traffic jam…")

– "Heb jij wel eens geflirt in de file met andere bestuurders?"
("Have you ever flirted in a traffic jam with other drivers?")

– "Bij de H&M staan er altijd enorme files bij de kassa’s, echt irritant!"
("At H&M, there are always huge queues in front of the cash desks, really annoying!" The use of the word "file" here is to exaggerate. The normal Dutch word for "queue" is "rij".)

Related words:
– "Bestuurder": driver.
– "Ongeval": accident.
– "Ongeluk": accident, bad luck.

Extra:
Reducing traffic and traffic jams is always a popular subject for political campaigning. Right wing parties typically favour a solution with more road surface, whereas left wing parties typically favour a solution with better means of public transportation and higher road taxes. In this context, the possible introduction of "rekeningrijden" (literally "bill driving") is a popular theme. Here the idea is to register road use in certain areas during certain times for which you are "billed" later. Contrary to toll roads where you usually pay to finance the road, this policy is to deter you from using the car at that time or place. It has not been introduced yet.

Check out the current traffic conditions at the ANWB site: the General Dutch Association for Automobile Drivers, since 1883.

The word "file" appeared earlier in DWOTD 99. Bijna.

traffic light [noun] [het stoplicht, de stoplichten]

This week’s theme is “traffic objects” 🙂

Dutch traffic lights change from green to orange/yellow to red. However, they change directly from red to green, contrary to some other countries (like Germany for example).

A big source of annoyance in the Netherlands is the inefficiency of traffic lights. In the Hague it is quite normal to wait a long time and when you finally get a green light, you move for 30 metres and queue up at the next traffic light, or just see it turn to red as soon as you approach. There is no such thing as a green wave (and no, this is in no way based on our personal experience and no we are not frustrated 🙂 ). However, we advise you to never drive through red but just increase your speed between the traffic lights as the fine for speeding is lower than for ignoring a red traffic light 🙂 . See ‘Extra’.

Also, it can take quite some time before your traffic light switches to green after the crossing traffic has halted. This is supposed to be a safety measure but of course only encourages people to still dare to cross, like pedestrians and cyclists often do. Sometimes, we all just look at each other for 30 seconds before a light turns to green. Quite often cyclists have had enough by then and choose to ignore the red light. Of course at exactly that moment the other traffic light turns to green and again a dangerous situation occurs.

Maybe we should all just drive like the people in Naples, Italy 🙂

Examples:
– “Bij de stoplichten linksaf.”
(“Turn left at the traffic lights.” Literally: “At the traffic lights to the left.”)

– “Als het stoplicht op groen springt, mag je doorrijden.”
(“When the traffic light turns green, you can drive on.” Literally: “When the traffic light jumps to green…”)

– “Ik heb een boete van 130 euro gekregen omdat ik door rood ben gereden.”
(“I got a fine for driving through a red light.” Literally: …because I drove through red.”)

Related words:
– “Kruising”: crossing, junction.

broom [noun] [de bezem, de bezems; ‘bee-zum’]

The first "e" in "bezem" is pronounced a long "e", like in "feest". The second one is pronounced a bit like the "i" in the English "dirt", which we will call a silent "e" (for now). The act of cleaning with a broom is "bezemen". Now, if you wouldn’t know that "bezemen" is derived from "bezem", the normal Dutch vowel convention dictates the first "e" to be silent (as is usually the case with verbs starting with "be"), the second to be long (since it is followed by one consonant and one vowel) and the third "e" would be silent again, as it mostly is at the end of a multiple syllable word. However, "bezemen" is pronounced like "bezem" with an added "en", the latter having the expected silent "e". Ah, let’s just forget about it!

Example:
– "Mijn oma bezemde altijd het voetpad voor haar huis."
("My grandma used to broom the footpath in front of her house." In Dutch the English "used to (do something)" is often translated with the past tense and the word "altijd", which means "always".)

Expression:
– "Er de bezem door halen": to make a clean sweep (of something). Literally: "to take the broom through something".

Example:
"Het wordt tijd dat we de bezem halen door overbodige overheidsregels."
("It is about time that we make a clean sweep of unnecessary government rules.")

Related words:
– "Bezemsteel": broomstick.
– "Heks": witch.

Extra:
Read more about brooms at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broom .