Dutch

It's a really good thing that everyone here in Amsterdam seems to speak English, because Dutch is not one of those languages that seems to share enough words with English so that you can more or less figure out what it means. And most of us know how to say basic words like "Hello" and "goodbye" and "thank you" in Spanish and French and maybe even Japanese or Russian, but until today I didn't know a single word in Dutch. Now I know one: "Gracht." It means "canal." Which is not especilly useful for a tourist, since the canals are everywhere, sort of like alleys in Chicago, but you don't really need to refer to them.

And also, Dutch seems to have a lot of extra vowels, as in "Reguilerstraat" (the street where our hotel is.) I am not sure how to pronounce the street names, or names of museums, etc. Vanna, I'd like to buy a consonant...