A couple of years ago, a professor at my university had a very interesting thought exchange with the class I was in. We were a small group, and I knew most of them, they were my friends. Anyway, we had a talk about language purism - not an unimportant subject if you study English in The Netherlands.
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Member since:2005-07-12
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This might be correct for the well educated strata you mentioned. But it isn't if you compare the majority in The Netherlands with the majority in the US. Growing up in the smaller country you practically can't avoid to learn some German, French, and English.
Member since:2006-03-18
This might be correct for the well educated strata you mentioned. But it isn't if you compare the majority in The Netherlands with the majority in the US. Growing up in the smaller country you practically can't avoid to learn some German, French, and English. "
What percentage of the Dutch population do you imagine is as well educated as Thom? The Netherlands has it's working class as well. I doubt very much that most of them speak or write English half as well as Thom. I'll grant that most people will at least know some English, German or French, of necessity - nobody is going to understand your Dutch when you are carvanning around Europe on holiday.
Member since:2005-07-12
Thom is half-right. Americans do deal with other languages frequently, but do so poorly. "Budweiser is advertising in Spanish?!?! That's an American beer!"
Speaking multiple languages and traveling abroad makes you a rare exception. I think most Americans with as much education as you quickly forgot the languages they learned once they got a diploma. California is the worst, I think, because we are the most diverse part of the country, but still think everybody should learn English. I really do think a foreign language should be a requirement for graduating high school, but Americans don't really like anything "foreign".
Oh, the irony.
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In mine. "The Netherlands" is English for "Nederland", and the language we speak is "Nederlands". Technically speaking, the English name for my language should be "Netherlandic", but this term is hardly used.
"Dutch" is a relic name, as it refers to a language that no longer exists ("Middle Dutch" or colloqually, "Diets", ~1100-1500).
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There are lots of people in the USA who have great foreign language skills. But if you compare the statistics, there is a huge difference between the USA and Europe.
Please don't take offence, but sometimes we need to generalise if we want to say something about the general trends. It is however important to emphasise that the general trend not necessarally implies that all the individuals are alike.
I can by looking at the statistics say that you have much more linguistic knowledge than what is the trend among US Americans.
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2006-03-18
"Most of our readers come from the United States, and as such, will have little to no experience in dealing with languages other than English (which, I can assure you, is a great loss - nothing broadens your horizon more than learning a new language)"
Good lord - generalize much? I deal with Spanish every day, living in a city with a large minority hispanic population. I took French in high school, studied Nederlands in college and even got in a semester of Hungarian while in Budapest. My wife took the obligatory high school French, speaks fluent German (Germans ask her what part of Germany she is from) and studied Swedish in college.
Granted, I live in a world where my languages is the lingua franca, so no, my skills in a non-native language are certainly not as buff as yours, but you are wrong to assume that people in the US with a similar educational level as your own, have little or no exposure to foreign languages.