And Your Name Again??

Oh, why even bother with introductions? In this country, unless the name is Hans, I'm very unlikely to understand the name. I'm sorry, I try, but my ear just isn't accustomed to Dutch names. Either they have really long names, completely foreign names, or names with new sounds in them I can't picture how to write it. Even names familiar to me, like Margaret, sound so different when a Dutch person pronounces it, I'm unlikely to figure out it is "Margaret". And then there are names like Cees, pronounced "Case". Or "Joke", pronounced "Yoh-kuh". Go figure.

And this doesn't even address the lead-in to the introduction. Maybe if the introduction was always, simply, "Ik ben" ("I am") and then a name, I could at least understand if there was a name in the phrase. But it is rare that someone just says, "Ik ben Hans." I don't know what they are saying, but it probably is something like, "My name is Johannes, but call me Hans." I can't figure out what's a name and what's not, much less figure out what the name is...

I thought it was only my problem, but recently Dan met somebody new. When I asked him what this person's name was, he replied, "Flifoff." The name, of course, wasn't Flifoff, but that's all Dan could make out of the introduction.