Reading ‘Western European’ through a Dutch lens

I’ve just published a Dutch-language book titled Seven Languages in Seven Days. It teaches the Dutch-speaking reader how to understand written Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese and West Frisian based on the languages they already know: their native Dutch, their (semi-)fluent English and their typically rusty school German and French. For them, I made the below video.

This book could also be written – rather than simply translated, since it will require quite an overhaul – for speakers of German and the Scandinavian languages. To make the video accessible for them, I’ve added English subtitles (machine-translated and lightly edited). But of course, if you’re a native speaker of yet another language, such as English, you’re still cordially invited to have a peek. Be welcome!

By the way, I’m delighted to say that the book has been very successful in the first three weeks of its life. Loads of media attention, extremely positive response from potential readers and even an official bestseller listing – my first ever in the Netherlands. There was even a great blogpost in English about it, written by my Portuguese language friend Marco Neves.

Around the world in eight publishers (and counting)

I haven’t blogged for a while. First, I was too busy finishing my book, Babel. Then, exhausted, I took a few weeks off (one of which I spent polishing up my French).

Babel DEFMeanwhile, good news kept coming in. I already knew that Babel was going to be published by Profile (UK), Grove Atlantic (US) and Athenaeum (Netherlands). Then three publishers who bought Lingo also decided to buy Babel: Pax (Norway), Turner (Spain) and Azbooka-Atticus (Russia). While I was very pleased by that, I was nothing short of delighted by the news that a Chinese and a Taiwanese publisher (Shanghai Dook and Faces Publishing) are going to bring out the book in two different Mandarin versions, one in simplified, the other in traditional characters.

My wife suggested it would be fun to make a map showing the countries where Babel is coming out, so here it is. May it require many updates!

wereldkaart - met BABEL