Let’s talk about a Dutch word that’s pretty much exclusively used in a negative manner, but is still highly usable in all kinds of situations, which means you’ll hear it around a lot. The word is jammer, and while it’s technically the Dutch equivalent of the English word bummer, it’s a lot more complex – and no, it has nothing to do with ad-hoc music sessions. Let’s see how it’s used and why it can come in so handy so often.
Bummer
As stated in the introduction, the literal translation of jammer is bummer, as in: meh, it kinda blows this thing happened, but what are you gonna do about it, right?. It’s often used in exactly that way, even as a single-word phrase like the English equivalent.
While bummer is always a noun, and can easily be used in sentences like That’s a bummer, the Dutch version is either an adjective (Dutch: bijvoeglijk naamwoord) or an interjection (Dutch: tussenwerpsel, literally: something that’s thrown in between). You can’t say something is a jammer in Dutch, it’s always just jammer, at least in this basic sense of the word – you’ll find out about some additions later on.
It’s all pretty similar so far, but jammer can be used in a variety of ways and with a variety of exact meanings.
Jammeren
In Dutch, regular verbs get the -en suffix added to them, and jammeren is the verb that’s associated with the word jammer. That’s right, we have the equivalent of the word bummering, which, to my knowledge, doesn’t exist in English. Literally, it means as much as: to complain about something in a bit of an annoying way, like the English whining.
It’s more widely used to mean something even slightly more negative: an animal can jammeren when it’s got a thorn stuck in its paw, for example, or a child can jammeren for hours when they’re not allowed to watch television. So while jammer is quite the tame term, jammeren is usually a bit more intense. This, by the way, was the first actual use of the word.
Jammer genoeg
When used in front of the word genoeg, the meaning of jammer changes slightly once more. Jammer genoeg literally means bummer enough, which makes no sense at all in English. Its figurative meaning is something along the lines of sadly enough, which is a very common phrase in English, too – and in which sadly is actually an adjective, like jammer.
Imagine you had been planning on attending someone’s birthday party, but you find yourself at home with a bad case of the flu. When that’s the case, you might want to text the feestvarken (Eng: birthday boy/girl, literally: party pig) something like Jammer genoeg kan ik niet komen, want ik ben ziek (Eng: Sadly enough, I can’t make it, because I’m ill).
Jammer dan
There’s one more widely used version of jammer that deserves its own subheading, and that’s jammer dan. It literally means bummer then, but again, that doesn’t really make any sense. This is one of those phrases that can have different meanings in different situations and with different intonations, and it’s very hard to talk about those latter things, but I’ll at least give you the different situations.
Jammer dan can be used as a means of saying something like Oh, well, for example when something unexpected and mildly frustrating happens, but since it’s already happened and there’s nothing you can do about it now, you might as well just accept it and move on. Left your phone charger in your hotel room and you’re already in a cab towards the airport? Oh well, jammer dan, we’ll buy a new one once we get home.
It can also be used in a similar way, but from the perspective of someone who is telling you to chill out and accept the situation. When someone tells you there’s a hole in their sock, you might reply with Jammer dan. This way, it’s more of a sarcastic remark than anything else, telling the listener: shucks, but the world will move on, and I’m not gonna lose any sleep over it. The English bummer can of course also be used in this way.
Jammerlijk
Just like you can turn many words into an adjective by using the -ly suffix in English, Dutch has similar solutions, and -lijk is one of them. It just means in the way of…, like the English word like. (Lijk also means dead body, but oh well, jammer dan).
In this form, jammer is often used to talk about verbal nouns or actions, in this case actions that aren’t going overly well. You’ll find it most in phrases like jammerlijk falen, for which English has a perfectly solid option as well: to fail miserably. Not only are you failing, but you’re doing so in a bit of a sad, pathetic way.
Non-jammer uses of jammer
Dutch features some similar-looking words that have nothing to do with the meanings described above. The two most notable ones are as follows:
Jammen, like the English verb to jam, means playing music in a random, non-predetermined fashion. A jamsessie is the same as a jam session (learn more about why we like to squish words together in the article about compound words), and technically, a person performing the act of jammen could, just like in English, be called a jammer, which is perfectly grammatically correct, although it’s not used like that very often – perhaps because of all the other ways we can use jammer. We also pronounce jammen the English way, by the way.
Jam is also a familiar word in English: it’s that sweet, delicious fruity paste used so often in desserts, cakes, or, if you really want to do it the Dutch way, spread out thickly on a slice of untoasted white bread. This jam is pronounced a bit weirdly: the j is more of a zj sound rather than the dzj sound in jammen, almost like French.
Long story short
Jammer is a word that’s thrown around in your average Dutch conversations a lot, especially when things go slightly sideways or something unexpected happens. It can literally mean the same as bummer, but it can also be used as a translation to phrases like Oh well, or even sarcastically: tough break, kiddo.
It’s one of those odd ones where the meaning is almost always perfectly clear to a native Dutch speaker because of the situation it’s used in and the way it’s pronounced. I hope this article has helped you to grasp some of its finer details, though. And if not, well… jammer dan.
