Some Dutch words for autumn

Do you like autumn? Just like all the other seasons, it is a very special season. That is why you will find some useful words and… it will also show you how the Dutch language works 🙂

Herfst is the Dutch word for autumn and people say that there is a relation with harvest. What do you think? It might be true.  De herfst is definitively a season where you can harvest many things.

Another word is also najaar. This literally means afteryear.  With this is mind, it is easy to guess what the Dutch word could be for spring. Indeed… voorjaar.  Before (voor) there is voorjaar and after (na) there is najaar 🙂

Another essential word is blad. This is a leaf of a plant or a tree, but… een blad could also mean magazine. Therefore nieuwsblad is a logical word for newspaper.

Bladzijde is the hardcore Dutch word for pagina (page). It is literally pageside. Can you see that bladzijde is actually quite a logical word?

If you have more than one blad of a tree, then you have bladeren.  Bladeren are leaves and… it is also something that you can do with a book or a magizine. Bladeren in een blad means that you flutter the pages of a magazine 🙂

Een paddestoel is the Dutch word for mushroom. In English you  could imagine that a mushroom has room for mush and in Dutch any paddestoel is like a chair (stoel) for a toad (pad). What would you think? Is a chair for a toad a logical word idea?

The specific name of this paddestoel above is vliegenzwam. Vliegen is flies and zwam is another word for paddestoel, you might also call it fungus in English.

Here is a funny thing… zwammen is  plural of zwam and… sometimes if you eat certain mushrooms then all of a sudden you’ll start to hallucinate and you’ll say stupid things. That is why zwammen also means that you are talking nonsense!

This last paddestoel could be handy if you have a printer at home. It is called inktzwam – ink mushroom in English. First it looks white, but after some time, it will turn is some sticky black substance that looks like ink. What do you think? Could you use this black substance for printing some documents?

So now you know some more words about herfst (autumn) in Dutch. What would be your favorite word for autumn? You can share your thoughts below!