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A comment on Google changes its messaging strategy again: Goodbye to Allo, double down on RCS. Parent comment

Re:Google changes its messaging strategy again: Goodbye to A... by X-Istence on Friday April 20, 2018 @03:06PM (#16887632)
Head on over to Europe, and:

> Ik steur je wel even een appje

(I'll send you an message on WhatsApp)

is the norm in The Netherlands. My entire family, extended family, and everyone around them is all on WhatsApp. While I communicate with iMessage/SMS with friends in the US, that's not the case outside of the US. Everyone seems to have WhatsApp, most people don't use Google hangouts or other services alongside that, let alone SMS.

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Re:Google changes its messaging strategy again: Goodbye to A... by Markoff on Saturday April 21, 2018 @07:18AM (#16890967)
i am curious, where does it say "whatsapp" in dutch? you don't use international names?
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Re:Google changes its messaging strategy again: Goodbye to A... by dansimau on Saturday April 21, 2018 @10:01AM (#16891450)
"appje" is the diminuitive form of "app", which is a shortened form of "whatsapp" (referring to a whatsapp message).

In English, you would never shorten the phrase "I'll send you a whatsapp" to "I'll send you an app" because the word "app" would be confused with a mobile app.

The Dutch still use the word "app" to mean a mobile app; "appje" means a whatsapp. So the diminuitive form allows them to disambiguate.

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Re:Google changes its messaging strategy again: Goodbye to A... by raarts on Saturday April 21, 2018 @09:58AM (#16891435)
The -je suffix in Dutch is commonly used and means 'small'. 'app' is used here as an alias for WhatsApp.

I'm also Dutch but I think 'app' is more like an alias for any chat service. WhatsApp is indeed huge though. Texting is basically dead in Europe afaict.

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