What is “Urk” in the Netherlands?
Mayonaise-ijs proeven bij een snackbar in Urk
A2 Dutch listening practice · Dutch · Picked for people who know a little
Urk is a small Dutch town on the edge of the Noordoostpolder, formerly an island in the Zuiderzee until the Afsluitdijk and the IJsselmeer reclamation projects connected it to the mainland in the 1930s. The Urkers preserved their own dialect (Urks), a strong Reformed Protestant culture, and most of the country’s remaining fishing fleet. The town is famous nationally for two things: the largest cutter-fleet in Dutch fishing, and its outsized cultural distinctness (Urkers are statistically the country’s lowest church-leavers and highest internal-migration outliers).
In this clip, an Urk snackbar serves mayonaise-ijs: “Er zit echt mayonaise in en er worden ook een x aantal scheppen ingedaan. Dat is een geheim recept.”
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Harder words in this video
These words are harder than A2. Here is what they mean.
Source: wordfreq 3.1.1 (general) · SUBTLEX-NL 2014 (spoken). These numbers are close, not perfect.
- ▸In Dutch regional-culture writing about Urk and the Noordoostpolder (Omroep Flevoland, De Volkskrant, Trouw)
- ▸In Dutch fishing-industry coverage (Visserijnieuws, NRC, Schuttevaer)
- ▸In Dutch travel writing about former Zuiderzee islands (Zuiderzee Museum, Holland.com, Het Klokhuis)
- ▸In Dutch dialect and language-heritage writing (Onze Taal, Meertens Instituut, NOS)