“That’s More Logical”: South African-Dutch Couple Struggles with Funny Accent Challenge

• A Dutch woman and a South African man compared a word in Dutch and Afrikaans, which had the woman feeling that her husband's translation was more logical than hers
• The Dutch pronunciation of the word not only has legal ties to it, but is also influenced by a German missionary's translation, the South American country Suriname, and, surprisingly, cheese
• Not many people entered the comment section, but one person who did expressed confusion over the woman's pronunciation of the word

A Dutch woman and her South African husband compared the word 'peanut butter' in Dutch and Afrikaans to see how they differ, despite the mutual intelligibility of the two languages. While one answer took a literal approach, the other seemed to have used a translation that required further explanation.

On 19 November, 2025, the Facebook page Aubergine Foods Canada uploaded a video initially posted by Joyce von Ruben-Atkinson in 2024. In the clip, Joyce said 'pindakaas,' while her husband said 'grondboontjiebotter.' She wondered about the Afrikaans translation, which her husband explained was because the 'boontjie' comes from the 'grond' (the beans, or in this case, the nuts, come from the ground).

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"That's more logical than the Dutch one, said Joyce."

The Dutch translation stumped a Facebook user, Jacqueline Farrugia Gabriele, who wrote in the comment section of the post:

"I heard it six times and still cannot understand the pronunciation."

Why 'pindakaas' and not 'pindaboter'?

According to Public History Amsterdam, a literal translation of 'peanut butter' would be 'pindaboter'; however, in the Netherlands, the product is famously known as 'pindakaas.' This directly translates to 'peanut cheese' in English. The origins of the name go back to 18th-century Suriname (a South American, Dutch-colonised country), where a solid block of mashed peanuts was commonly made and sliced in the same way as cheese. The product was referred to as 'pienda-doeken.' When a German missionary translated the term, it became 'pindakäse,' which later influenced the Dutch word 'pindakaas.'

There was also a legal reason behind the name choice: the Dutch Boterwet (Butter Law) of 1883, which protected dairy butter manufacturers from competition by prohibiting non-dairy products from using the word 'butter' in their names. To comply with this regulation, the peanut spread was called 'pindakaas' rather than 'pindaboter.'

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Watch the TikTok video posted on Aubergine Foods Canada's account below:

3 Other stories about different accents

• In another article, Briefly News reported on a resurfaced clip of a young woman's posh accent that mesmerised South Africans. The Stellenbosch University student gave a breakdown of her expensive outfit.
• A young South African man in Liverpool, England, demonstrated how he effortlessly switched from a Scouse accent to a Xhosa accent. Online users were surprised to hear the random switch-up.
• British actress Rosamund Pike perfected a tricky South African accent in her new film Now You See Me: Now You Don't. South African members of the online community couldn't help but joke about her character's authenticity.

Source: Briefly News