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Weet ik veel!

March 30th, 2009

A question for my Dutch friends:  How would you translate the phrase "weet ik veel" into colloquial English?

I was discussing the issue with some (bilingual) American friends today -- and it seemed that we all had a different translation in our heads for this commonly-spoken phrase from Dutch conversation.  I had always thought it was basically the equivalent of "I dunno" (which would be ironic, because the actual literal translation of the phrase is "I know a lot").  But one of my friends from the conversation this afternoon had always thought that it meant "Who knows?"  And the other friend seemed to have another potential interpretation (which I can't completely remember right now).  They were, of course, all shades of the same meaning.

But I'd be curious to know how Nederlanders themselves might try to pinpoint the translation of the phrase.

I posed the question to Elliot this evening, before he went to bed, and he said that it meant "I don't know anything" -- basically the same as "ik weet het niet" (I don't know) -- and then he added that he and his classmates are not allowed to use the phrase at school (which I thought was interesting).

I don't think my Dutch-as-a-second-language education will ever be complete... But then again, weet ik veel!

This entry is filed under Language, Nederlands.

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