Learn Dutch Idioms with 80 Flashcards: From Pijpenstelen to Beren op de Weg

Dutch idioms are where textbook Dutch stops and real conversation starts. Colleagues say met de deur in huis vallen when they get straight to the point. A friend who holds back kijkt de kat uit de boom. Deck SL1296, "Dutch Idioms & Expressions" (80 cards) gives you a solid base, but a handful of its cards need fixing before your first review.

How the deck is built: two blocks

• Cards 1-58: literal fronts. The front is a word-for-word rendering of the Dutch ("To see bears on the road", "Now comes the monkey out of the sleeve"), and the meaning sits in brackets on the back. This is the fun half, because the image carries the memory.
• Cards 60-80: English-equivalent fronts. Here you get "To kill two birds with one stone" → Twee vliegen in één klap slaan (literally two flies in one blow). These cards train production.

Study the first block Dutch → meaning and the second block English → Dutch. Don't mix the two directions in one session.

8 cards worth learning first

Also covered: een vinger in de pap hebben, om de hete brij heen draaien, als twee druppels water, de kat uit de boom kijken, met de Franse slag, een lange teen hebben, met je mond vol tanden staan, als een rode draad, de plank misslaan, zuur brood gegeten hebben, op de blaren zitten, water naar de zee dragen, van het kastje naar de muur, in hetzelfde schuitje zitten, een eitje, oude liefde roest niet.

Cards to rewrite before you start

Several backs are wrong or don't match their fronts. Edit them once and you won't learn the mistakes:

• Card 74: kort door de bocht means "oversimplified" or "blunt", not "to make a long story short". The phrase you want is om een lang verhaal kort te maken.
• Card 79: de bonen verklappen is a calque that Dutch speakers don't use. Say uit de school klappen or de boel verklappen.
• Card 22: het op je heupen hebben means "to be in a foul mood", not "to be well-off".
• Card 27: iets achter de elleboog hebben means "to be sly" or "to hide something", not "to be skilled".
• Card 12: the back, de eendjes leren zwemmen, means "teaching ducks to swim" (telling experts what they already know). The front doesn't match it.
• Cards 25, 59 and 62: the front and back belong to different idioms. On card 25 you buy (kopen) the cat in the bag, you don't sell it. On card 59, "pull someone's leg" is iemand in de maling nemen, and card 21 (op de arm nemen) already covers it. Card 62's back is fine, but its front belongs to another expression.
• Card 30: dat zijn pinda's is an anglicism. Dutch speakers say dat is een peulenschil.

Two study tips

1. Group the cards by image, not by card number. Put the animals together (bears, cats, monkey, ducks, flies, swallow), then food (porridge, cookie, apple and egg, sour bread), then body parts (toe, elbow, hips, hand, head). Dutch idioms cluster by image, so recalling one brings back its neighbours.
2. Add a sentence to the hint field. All 80 hints are empty. Write one sentence per card, such as Hij viel meteen met de deur in huis. Idioms only stick once you've seen them doing a job in a sentence.

Keep going

Build the words these idioms are made of with 1000 Dutch Words and the Dutch Top 100.

Find deck SL1296 in the library at Flip It.