Raadsel: hoeveel rozen heb ik dan?

What does “voor 2 euro 50 rozen” mean in Dutch?

In spoken Dutch, prices drop the decimal marker: “twaalf euro vijftig” means €12.50, not twelve euros and fifty things. That habit turns “voor 2 euro 50 rozen” into a genuine riddle: is it “for €2, fifty roses” or “for €2.50, [some] roses”? The speaker means the first — a bulk buy — but almost every listener defaults to the second, because the price-reading pattern is so automatic.

The riddle plays out in the clip: after the speaker says “Ik koop voor 2 euro 50 rozen,” the other person echoes back “Voor 2 euro 50?” — locking onto €2.50 — and gets corrected: “Nee, je luistert niet goed.” The trap is purely structural. Dutch states amounts as [euros] + [cents] with no spoken comma, so the ear hears a price first and a quantity second only when context forces it. The fix in writing is easy: “Ik koop 50 rozen voor 2 euro.” In speech, only stress and context separate the two readings — exactly the kind of thing a careful listener has to learn to catch.