The trip took about one and a half hours by car, and we organized it with Katja from Germany and Etty from the Netherlands. Everything worked out really well, and it felt nice to plan something together as a small group.
During the hike, we focused on vocabulary about the forest. We learned many words, but some stuck with me the most. For example, “forest” is bos in Dutch. That’s also when I started to understand how Dutch articles work with de and het. Compared to French, where every word is masculine or feminine, this system actually seemed simpler. I also noticed that bos sounds quite similar to the French les bois, which made it easier to remember.
Another fun word was paddenstoel (mushroom). I liked how stoel reminded me of “stem” in German. And then there was zee (sea) and meer (lake), which is almost the opposite of French, where mer means sea. Since we passed several lakes during the hike, I had a good chance to practice meer again and again.
We also talked about how different our countries are. Thijs explained that the Netherlands is very flat and doesn’t really have cliffs, which is why many Dutch people go skiing in Austria or France. In France, however, people often prefer to stay in their own country for holidays because they already have both mountains and the sea. I had never thought about this difference before, and it was interesting to see how geography shapes culture.
Overall, the day was a lot of fun and a really good start for our exchange. I learned useful new words, discovered similarities with French and German, and got to know more about Dutch culture. I’m looking forward to more activities like this with Thijs in the future.
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