De vier seizoenen uitgelegd in eenvoudig Nederlands

What does “langlaufen” mean in Dutch?

Dutch borrows langlaufen straight from German — no translation, no adaption — to mean cross-country skiing: the self-propelled kind on flat terrain, not the downhill kind. The compound breaks down as lang (long) + laufen (to run), and Dutch absorbed it as early as 1924. It sits alongside the native phrase cross-country skiën, the two names coexisting as equals in everyday speech.

In the clip the speaker lists winter activities while walking through snow: “Je kan cross-country skiën of langlaufen zoals het ook wel heet” — “You can cross-country ski, or langlaufen as it is also called.” That casual aside is a neat window into Dutch’s easy relationship with German sporting vocabulary: when a German compound is already clear and established, Dutch simply keeps it. German Langlauf (noun) and langlaufen (verb) are standard in German too, where the sport is alternatively called Skilanglauf. The Dutch verb inflects normally: ik langlauf, hij langlauft, we zijn gaan langlaufen.