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All About S1
An Introduction to Dutch Pop Culture

10 Grammar Points 2
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Grammar Points
The Focus of this Lesson is an Introduction to Dutch Pop Culture

Popular music
It is hard to pinpoint an exact identity for Dutch pop music. It roughly falls in two segments. Pop and
rock music, which is mainly sung in English, and Kleinkunst and Levenslied which is mainly sung in
Dutch. The two hardly ever mix. Exceptions were the period before Nederbeat (until 1967) and the
period between 1980 and 1985.
Kleinkunst used to be a mix of folk and cabaret and nowadays it's closer to pop music.
Levenslied (Dutch, lit. "life song" meaning "song about the real life") is a highly sentimental
Dutch-language sub-genre of pop music.
One can speculate what the exact reason is for this split but my guess is plainly economics. Holland is
a small country, AKA, a small market, and English-sung Nederbeat turned out to be highly succesful
outside Europe. Like Sweden has ABBA as its millstone, Holland has Nederbeat with pop music up
until now trying desperately to sound and look like English or American pop groups.
The rock scene discards Levenslied (and in a lesser way Kleinkunst) as inferior music. In effect this
genre tends to look the other way round to Germany and France. Oddly enough, artists who do
2 succeed in mixing the two, like for instance Doe Maar, Marco Borsato and Bløf, are in fact the most
popular pop artists in the Netherlands today.

Popular movies
Because the Dutch film industry is relatively small, and there is little or no international market for
Dutch films; almost all films rely on state funding.
Popular Dutch movies are Turks Fruit, Flodder, All Stars, De Lift and Soldaat van Oranje, Alles is
liefde, Ciske de Rat and De Aanslag. Some Dutch actors made their transition to Hollywood, the most
successful being Rutger Hauer (Blade Runner), Jeroen Krabbé (The Fugitive) and Famke Janssen
(X-Men). Filmmakers besides Paul Verhoeven who successfully began a career in Hollywood include
Jan de Bont (who started as cinematographer before directing big budget action movies like Speed and
Twister)

Popular television
On Dutch TV you can watch a wide variety of programs, many foreign, mostly British and American,
soaps, sitcoms, reality shows and movies make it to the screen. The Dutch subtitle their programs.

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Some popular Dutch TV programs are Goede tijden slechte tijden, a long running soap program and
Boer zoekt vrouw, which is a matchmaking program where a farmer is looking for a wife.

Popular countrymen and women abroad

Well to see who are the most popular/well-known country men I checked the number of times their
name appears on the web. Let's see:
1. Tijs Michiel Verwest: DJ Tiësto is one of the most popular and respected DJs in the world.
His real name is Tijs Verwest and he was born on January 17th, 1969 in Breda. He started on a
drive in show on the age of 14. After this he started playing at many different clubs and events.
In February '99 he made his first big appearance, on the mainstage at Innercity. From that time
his star rose faster and faster. Tiësto's signature is that he seems to know exactly how to make
a crowd go wild. Tiesto performs all around the world.
2. Vincent Willem van Gogh (30 March 1853 – 29 July 1890): is generally considered the
greatest Dutch painter after Rembrandt, though he had little success during his lifetime.
Nowadays his paintings rank among the most expensive paintings in the world. One well
known fact about this painter was that he cut of his left ear. In Amsterdam you can find the
Van Gogh museum.
3. Anne Frank (12 June 1929 – early March 1945): Anne is probably the most discussed
Holocaust victim. She was an ordinary Jewish girl who is well known because of her diary.
Anne wrote her diary while she was hiding with her family from the Germans. It was first
published as a book, in Dutch, in 1947. Since then, millions of people have read the thoughts
and hopes of one young girl and have been inspired by them.

3 Popular Sports Figures

Marco van Basten (1964-10-31 - ): Marco van Basten is one of the most prominent and loved Dutch
players of all times. This phenomenal Dutch striker was ranked eighth in the election for Football
Player of the Century. In 1992 the genial striker retired from football due to bad injuries and is
currently coach of the Dutch national football team.

Pieter van den Hoogenband (1978-03-14 - ): Pieter van den Hoogenband is one of the most prominent
and successful contemporary swimmers in the world. He is the current world record holder in the most
attractive discipline—100m freestyle swimming. In 1999 he won an amazing six gold medals at the
European Championship in Istanbul and became one of the best swimmers worldwide.

Robert Rintje Ritsma (1970-03-13 - ): Rintje Ritsma belongs to the most gifted speed skaters of our
time and is at the same time one of the brightest Dutch sport stars. The Bear from Lemmer, as they
call him, boasts a swag of excellent achievements. During his active career Rintje Ritsma set four
world records in different disciplines. For a total of 1,125 days Ritsma stayed at the top of the all-time

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world ranking.

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