Manny's Reviews > Sjakie en de chocoladefabriek

"Isn't it wonderful?" asked Willy Wonka. "Haven't the Oompa-Loompas done a fine job? I particularly liked their poems. Quite perfect, don't you agree?"

Charlie turned red. "I, uh..." he began.

"Yes?" said Willy Wonka. "I know, it's not long enough. It should have been twice as long. Three times as long. But you mustn't discourage them. I'm sure they did the very best they could."

Grandpa Joe had meanwhile put on his glasses and peered at the book. "It's not that," he said. "Mr. Wonka, I think there's been some mistake. This book isn't in English. In fact, I don't properly know what language it's in. We can't understand a word of it."

"Of course!" said Willy Wonka, dramatically striking his forehead. "Of course. How silly of me, I forget to give you your Linguistic Lollies. My very latest and most brilliant invention. Now let me see," he said as he pulled a box out of his pocket and began fumbling through it, "Danish, Dari, Dakota, Dyirbal, where is it! Ah, here we are, Dutch." He pulled out a handful of brightly coloured sweets and gave one to each member of the party. "Take these and I'm sure we'll soon be back on track."

Charlie popped the sweet in his mouth. It had a curious taste which reminded him of cheese, tulips and something he couldn't name, but somehow it was quite delicious. In a moment he had gobbled it up.

"Alright," said Willy Wonka, clapping his hands. "Look at the book again. Why don't you try reading a bit aloud."

Charlie opened it, "S, uh," he began, and stopped. A look of great surprise came over his face.

"Yes?" said Willy Wonka. Charlie stared at the book and continued. "’s Avonds als hij zijn avondmaal van waterige koolsoep op had, ging Sjakie altijd naar de kamer van zijn vier grootouders om naar hun verhalen te luisteren en ze daarna goedenacht te zeggen."

"And in English?" asked Willy Wonka encouragingly. Charlie's eyes were as big as saucers.

"I know what it means!" he said. "'’s Avonds' - well, that's 'in the evening', 'als hij zijn avondmaal van waterige koolsoep op had', 'when he'd had his dinner of watery cabbage soup'. Of course, 'koolsoep', that's like Swedish 'kålsoppa'! 'ging Sjakie altijd naar de kamer van zijn vier grootouders', 'ging' and 'altijd' are like in Swedish, 'kammer' and 'vier' are like in German, so it's 'went Sjakie always to the room of his four grandparents'. 'Om naar hun verhalen te luisteren en ze daarna goedenacht te zeggen', what's 'verhalen', oh, it must be 'stories'. 'To listen to their stories then say goodnight to them'. I see, the German initial S is often changed into Z, so 'sein' and 'sagen' become 'zijn' and 'zeggen'."

"Exactly so!" said Willy Wonka. "You see, you understood it all along. Now we must hurry or we'll never have time for the Parsing Peppermints."