Earlier this day, a close Dutch relative (understatement) brought up the Dutch word ‘flater’, which had me confused for a couple of seconds: the actual meaning of the word (“a fiasco of gigantic proportions”, I guess you could call that an ‘overstatement’) didn’t drill down to me until I managed to get rid of the ‘inflated ball’ association my ‘English dictionary’ tried to push upon me.
I feel sorry for my relatives who may have a hard time understanding my often unintelligible pronouncement of words I used to master 6 years ago. On the other hand, why would I care if over 70 percent of Dutch people is able to speak English?