SLEAT - "small canal"

That last lesson was more than a bit intense, so today I'll keep things light and share a small sampling of some Frisian words that look like English but mean other things entirely.

You may remember honk from a previous lesson, which means "home" or "base." Here are a few other words that can be misleading to the English eye:

fonk / fûnk
a spark (cognate with the Dutch word "vonk")

Fonk (plural fonken) rhymes with the English word "honk." Fûnk (a variation on the same word) takes a long "oo like in "moon."

sleat

narrow canal, drainage ditch

This one looks like someone misspelled "sleet," but it is a useful word in the Netherlands, where these orderly waterways are everywhere! 

Here's an example from the news of what they look like. Say it with an "ih" like in "bit" followed by a schwa. [SLIH-uht] The plural, sleatten, takes an "yeh" sound like in "yet. [SLYEH-tuhn]

And here's one of my own pictures of a sleat:

In sleat, 2015 - Photo by author

Just to round things out, a larger sleat is called a feart. That word can also mean a sea journey. Say feart with an "ih: like in bit and a schwa too, but drop the r. [FIH-uht]. Plural is fearten [FYEH-tuhn].

This particular canal was labeled as a feart, but I have to admit that, coming from the other side of the Atlantic, I find the distinction a bit hazy:

In feart, 2015 - Photo by author

A few more. Here is a very common and useful word:

Moat

Must

It may look like it should mean the water surrounding a castle, but it is said with either an "ah" like in father or a shortened vowel more like the one in our word "put." The infinitive form, moatte, is said with an "ah." [MAW-tuh]

E.g., Ik moat sjen means "I must look." [IHk MUHt tCHIHn]

Dúst

Push

I think it is pronounced with a vowel similar to the long "oo" in "moon." 

An example: Ik joech him in dúst means "I gave him a push." A push into the dust maybe?

I'll end with a few innocent words that can get caught on English-language censoring filters: fokker means someone who breeds animals, like horses, and fûke means a trap (there is a rather grim but excellent Frisian-language film called De Fûke based on the book by Rink van der Velde). The pronunciations are [FAWk-kuhr] and [FOO-kuh] respectively.