Tag Archives: aarde

Dat heeft heel wat voeten in de aarde

Posted on by

that will take some doing, there is a lot of work involved
[Dutch phrase of the week]
[dat heeft heel wat voe-ten in de aar-de] 

The past few days I spent a lot of time on migrating the blog from dwotd.web-log.nl (which still seems to be unreachable) to www.dwotd.nl. This inspired me to choose ‘dat heeft heel wat voeten in de aarde’ as this week’s phrase 🙂 Literally ‘that has a lot of feet in the earth’ this phrase says that something will be difficult (labour-intensive, but possible) to realize with quite a few hurdles along the way.

You may also hear: “Het heeft heel wat voeten in de aarde.”

Examples:
– “Het heeft heel wat voeten in de aarde om met het openbaar vervoer van Amsterdam naar Barendrecht te reizen.” 
(“Using public transport to travel from Amsterdam to Barendrecht will take some doing.”)

– “Het maken van spekkoek heeft heel wat voeten in de aarde.” 
(“There is a lot of work involved in baking spekkoek.”)

– “Het plannen van een reis naar de maan heeft heel wat voeten in de aarde.” 
(“Planning a trip to the moon takes some doing.”)

– “Ik probeer al maanden een bouwvergunning aan te vragen…” – “Tja, in de bureaucratie die Nederland heet, heeft dat heel wat voeten in de aarde!” 
(“I have been trying for months to obtain a building/construction permit…” – “Well, in the bureaucracy one calls the Netherlands that will take some doing!” Note that ‘vragen’ means ‘to ask’, but ‘aanvragen’ is ‘to request’. In this case the result of the request is implied hence the translation ‘to obtain’.)

– “Het heeft heel wat voeten in de aarde, maar ik zou graag een DWOTD iPhone app maken.” 
(“There is a lot of work involved but I would really like to create a DWOTD iPhone app.”)

– “Mac OS X Lion werkt voor geen meter, ik wil terug naar Snow Leopard maar dat heeft heel wat voeten in de aarde!” 
(“Mac OS X Lion doesn’t work at all, I want to revert to Snow Leopard but that will take some doing!” I made the mistake to blindly upgrade to Lion and now I’m left with a cripple iMac!)

Related words:
– Aarde: earth, ground [noun] [de aarde, <no plural>].
– Voet: foot [noun] [de voet, de voeten].

Aardbeving

Posted on by

earthquake Iconspeaker_3 Aardbeving-tafel
[noun]
[de aard-be-ving, de aard-be-ving-en]

"Aardbeving" is composed of "aard" – from "aarde" – and "beving", which respectively translate to "earth" and "tremor/shake".

Examples:
– "Japan is vanmorgen getroffen door een zware aardbeving." 
("Japan has been struck by a major earthquake this morning.")

– "De aardbeving heeft een grote tsunami veroorzaakt, de situatie is nu zeer ernstig." 
("The earthquake has caused a big tsunami, the situation is very serious now.")

– "Tijdens de aardbeving in Christchurch zijn er meer dan honderd slachtoffers gevallen…" – "Verschrikkelijk!" 
("During the earthquake in Christchurch more than a hundred lives were lost." Lit.: "…casualties have fallen.")

Expressions:
– "Ik sta op mijn benen te trillen": my legs are shaking. Lit.: "I'm shaking on my legs".
– "Beven van (de) angst": to tremble with fear.

Example:
– "De kinderen beefden van angst toen de bullebak tegen hen schreeuwde."
("The children trembled with fear when the bully cried out against them.")

Related words:
– Aarde: earth, dirt, ground [noun] [de aarde, de aardes].
– Beven: to tremor, to tremble, to shake [verb] [beven, beefde, h. gebeefd].
– Trillen: to tremor, to tremble, to shake [verb] [trillen, trilde, h. getrild].
– Trilling: tremor, vibration [noun] [de trilling, de trillingen].

Example:
– "Voel je die trillingen in de tafel? Het zal toch geen aardbeving zijn?"
("Do you feel those vibrations in the table? That's not an earthquake, is it?")

– Schaal van Richter: Richter scale.