I have a British passport, not an EU one unfortunately. Also, I barely made it through high school French, so I’m guessing I won’t be able to learn Dutch.
In my personal experience, learning Dutch as foreigner can only happen by a method akin to being pushed into the deep end of a wimming pool and learning to swim - in other words, you have to be in a situation were your only option is to know how to speak Dutch - and I say this as somebody who can speak 7 languages (though 2 of them are at a “just getting away with it” level).
That said, most Dutch speak excellent English and even the State (not the local but the central one) and the Banks will communicate with you in English if you want, so people can live in The Netherlands for decades without speaking Dutch (some of my Brit colleagues when I lived over there were like that).
The Netherlands is certainly a far safer place for a lesbian teenager than Britain and will remain so simply because seeing an sexual orientations as absolutely normal happens at the level of Dutch Society itself, to the point that their first large Far Right party was led by a guy who from the start openly admitted to being a homosexual.
Having also lived in Britain I would say they’re “complicated” when it comes to tolerance because unlike the Dutch, Brits are big on appearances and judging people, so tolerance its not a natural part of the social posture over there IMHO, whilst gedogen is something the Dutch are actually proud of.
That’s not true, not excellent English. Many speak enough to get by, except the elderly and the young, and some of them speak it well, fewer still excellently. Over four years, I’ve met probably a handful at most who could express their deepest thoughts and desires while pronouncing “th” correctly and their As not as Es.
Many banks won’t take you in if you don’t speak Dutch and it’s harder to find a job (this was in the news just recently, as it happens: nearly all international students are struggling in the job market because they generally don’t learn Dutch, despite there being so many vacancies). You can definitely get by with English, and I’ve heard of many people living here decades without learning Dutch too, but if you want to live well, that’s another thing altogether.
The good news is Dutch is easy if your mother tongue’s English or German but there is indeed a problem in the Randstad of it being hard to convince anyone to let you speak it with them, in part because they often overestimate how well they speak it. There’s a relatively famous quote from colonial Indonesia about how the Dutch colonisers would rather speak bad Indonesian than Dutch, which the Indonesians spoke fluently. I think it’s like a feedback effect with the reputation they have for knowing second languages.
I lived in The Netherlands for 8 and a half years between the late 90s and the late 00s.
My experience whilst living in The Netherlands was that most people spoke pretty good English in terms of vocabulary, accent aside (which, as I myself am not a native English speaker, was not high on my list of priorities). Certain it qualified as “excellent” compared to people in my homeland (Portugal) back at the time. Then again I mostly knew people who had a higher education qualification so probably more likely to use English at work and follow English-language media.
(Note that in my metric, “excellent” is bellow having “fully mastered the language” - basically I meant it as can easilly hold a conversation on common topics. I’m probably falling into the habits I caught when living in Britain and using the word “excellent” to mean what people in other countries think of as “good”)
As for the banks dealing with you in English, I still have a bank account with a Dutch bank and they always send me documents in English and still do, even though I don’t actually need it anymore. Maybe other banks won’t do it by the big ones do.
As for the impact of not knowing Dutch, for job seekers in The Netherlands, in my area - Software Development, which when I moved to The Netherlands I only had 2 years professional experience of doing - that was only a problem for me in the 2 years immediatelly after the Tech bubble crashed in the year 2000, whilst not for the rest of the time I lived there (and as I worked as a freelancer - specifically a contractor - for half of my time in The Netherlands I did change jobs much more often than normal so had quite a lot of experience with it). Can’t really speak for how things are now, for areas with less demand for professionals or for people in that hard period of one’s career which is trying to get into the work market as a recent graduate with no professional experience.
Also, speaking very good English (as in, better than what I meant by “excellent” in my previous post), I never felt that it helped me in learning Dutch. Agree with the rest that the Dutch tend to reply back in English if they think the other person can understand it, which for me as a Portuguese was seldom a problem whilst for my friends and colleagues from English speaking countries that was commonly a problem (I suspect the difference is because Dutch people couldn’t just tell from my accent that I could speak English). My advice for any foreigner stuck in this situation there, is to persist in speaking Dutch even if the other person switches to English.
PS: By the way, my point that being a native English-speaker does not help with learning Dutch is consistent with what I saw with my immigrant work colleagues and friends, were the native English speakers would take longer and not get as far when learning Dutch than those who were not native English speakers. Maybe the Dutch-English works fine but I did not see that happenning the other way around, plus even in my mind my language knowledge has somehow ended up with Dutch and German in the same bucket, English in a totally different bucket, Spanish, Portuguese and Italian in yet another bucket and French also in its own bucket (kinda, as some things are the same as in other Romance languages) - might just be the product of my language learning experience though.
I’m not worried about appearance. She dresses punky like a lot of kids here do. And she’s not trans, just a lesbian, so she will be much safer here than the U.S.
The concept of “appearences” I’m talking about is much broader than just how people look, and definitelly covers how people talk and behave.
We’re talking about a country were rich people have their very own accent, which is not regional - something which I so far have yet to see anywhere else.
If over there you mix with people who are English middle class or above, you’ll see what I mean soon enough.
Well, if you end up working in an office environment most people you will come across consider themselves middle class because they’re white collar workers rather than blue collar workers even if (like most other places, it seems) most of the British middle class tend to live paycheck to paycheck same as the working class.
Also who you’ll meet in social situations will depend a lot on where you live, since last I checked most city centers in England had become way too expensive for even young white collar workers to live in, much less blue collar ones.
Anyways, in my own experience going to live in other countries, whatever happens will be a good learning experience.
I have a British passport, not an EU one unfortunately. Also, I barely made it through high school French, so I’m guessing I won’t be able to learn Dutch.
In my personal experience, learning Dutch as foreigner can only happen by a method akin to being pushed into the deep end of a wimming pool and learning to swim - in other words, you have to be in a situation were your only option is to know how to speak Dutch - and I say this as somebody who can speak 7 languages (though 2 of them are at a “just getting away with it” level).
That said, most Dutch speak excellent English and even the State (not the local but the central one) and the Banks will communicate with you in English if you want, so people can live in The Netherlands for decades without speaking Dutch (some of my Brit colleagues when I lived over there were like that).
The Netherlands is certainly a far safer place for a lesbian teenager than Britain and will remain so simply because seeing an sexual orientations as absolutely normal happens at the level of Dutch Society itself, to the point that their first large Far Right party was led by a guy who from the start openly admitted to being a homosexual.
Having also lived in Britain I would say they’re “complicated” when it comes to tolerance because unlike the Dutch, Brits are big on appearances and judging people, so tolerance its not a natural part of the social posture over there IMHO, whilst gedogen is something the Dutch are actually proud of.
That’s not true, not excellent English. Many speak enough to get by, except the elderly and the young, and some of them speak it well, fewer still excellently. Over four years, I’ve met probably a handful at most who could express their deepest thoughts and desires while pronouncing “th” correctly and their As not as Es.
Many banks won’t take you in if you don’t speak Dutch and it’s harder to find a job (this was in the news just recently, as it happens: nearly all international students are struggling in the job market because they generally don’t learn Dutch, despite there being so many vacancies). You can definitely get by with English, and I’ve heard of many people living here decades without learning Dutch too, but if you want to live well, that’s another thing altogether.
The good news is Dutch is easy if your mother tongue’s English or German but there is indeed a problem in the Randstad of it being hard to convince anyone to let you speak it with them, in part because they often overestimate how well they speak it. There’s a relatively famous quote from colonial Indonesia about how the Dutch colonisers would rather speak bad Indonesian than Dutch, which the Indonesians spoke fluently. I think it’s like a feedback effect with the reputation they have for knowing second languages.
Anyway, details details.
I lived in The Netherlands for 8 and a half years between the late 90s and the late 00s.
My experience whilst living in The Netherlands was that most people spoke pretty good English in terms of vocabulary, accent aside (which, as I myself am not a native English speaker, was not high on my list of priorities). Certain it qualified as “excellent” compared to people in my homeland (Portugal) back at the time. Then again I mostly knew people who had a higher education qualification so probably more likely to use English at work and follow English-language media. (Note that in my metric, “excellent” is bellow having “fully mastered the language” - basically I meant it as can easilly hold a conversation on common topics. I’m probably falling into the habits I caught when living in Britain and using the word “excellent” to mean what people in other countries think of as “good”)
As for the banks dealing with you in English, I still have a bank account with a Dutch bank and they always send me documents in English and still do, even though I don’t actually need it anymore. Maybe other banks won’t do it by the big ones do.
As for the impact of not knowing Dutch, for job seekers in The Netherlands, in my area - Software Development, which when I moved to The Netherlands I only had 2 years professional experience of doing - that was only a problem for me in the 2 years immediatelly after the Tech bubble crashed in the year 2000, whilst not for the rest of the time I lived there (and as I worked as a freelancer - specifically a contractor - for half of my time in The Netherlands I did change jobs much more often than normal so had quite a lot of experience with it). Can’t really speak for how things are now, for areas with less demand for professionals or for people in that hard period of one’s career which is trying to get into the work market as a recent graduate with no professional experience.
Also, speaking very good English (as in, better than what I meant by “excellent” in my previous post), I never felt that it helped me in learning Dutch. Agree with the rest that the Dutch tend to reply back in English if they think the other person can understand it, which for me as a Portuguese was seldom a problem whilst for my friends and colleagues from English speaking countries that was commonly a problem (I suspect the difference is because Dutch people couldn’t just tell from my accent that I could speak English). My advice for any foreigner stuck in this situation there, is to persist in speaking Dutch even if the other person switches to English.
PS: By the way, my point that being a native English-speaker does not help with learning Dutch is consistent with what I saw with my immigrant work colleagues and friends, were the native English speakers would take longer and not get as far when learning Dutch than those who were not native English speakers. Maybe the Dutch-English works fine but I did not see that happenning the other way around, plus even in my mind my language knowledge has somehow ended up with Dutch and German in the same bucket, English in a totally different bucket, Spanish, Portuguese and Italian in yet another bucket and French also in its own bucket (kinda, as some things are the same as in other Romance languages) - might just be the product of my language learning experience though.
I’m not worried about appearance. She dresses punky like a lot of kids here do. And she’s not trans, just a lesbian, so she will be much safer here than the U.S.
You’re not all too far from Hebden Bridge if you settle up them ways anyway. She’ll be sound. Best of luck to yous.
The concept of “appearences” I’m talking about is much broader than just how people look, and definitelly covers how people talk and behave.
We’re talking about a country were rich people have their very own accent, which is not regional - something which I so far have yet to see anywhere else.
If over there you mix with people who are English middle class or above, you’ll see what I mean soon enough.
Only if not by choice.
Well, if you end up working in an office environment most people you will come across consider themselves middle class because they’re white collar workers rather than blue collar workers even if (like most other places, it seems) most of the British middle class tend to live paycheck to paycheck same as the working class.
Also who you’ll meet in social situations will depend a lot on where you live, since last I checked most city centers in England had become way too expensive for even young white collar workers to live in, much less blue collar ones.
Anyways, in my own experience going to live in other countries, whatever happens will be a good learning experience.
They do speak English in the Netherlands. Not very good but enough