As well as the education system, I believe the good English spoken in the Netherlands is due to the amount of English language television - put out with sub-titles rather than dubbed into Dutch. Scandinavians have the same advantage, and also mostly speak excellent English.
Indubitably. I'm old enough to have grown up in the eastern part of the Netherlands where we had 5 tv channels, 3 of the German and the German ones were also broadcasing in the (Saturday and Sunday) afternoon with a lot of children's programs. They dub everything, so everything was German and mostly the accent of the neighboring region. So I learned German-accent German early on. And then Ducht tv had a lot of English movies and tv, so Iearned some of that. Before I officially learned it in school (along with French), I already had a basis. Plus a lot of music in English (and German and French) helped too.
@@RicoLee27 nee hoor, ik ben niet gelijk met U. Ik kwam naar Nederland en heeft geleerd Nederlands gevoon van "straat ". dus geen school of so iets en daar ben ik heel trots van! Maar Nederlands en Duits zijn meer dichter dan Nederlands en Engels! Dat zeker so! Graag te horen van U, als bent U niet gelijk met mijn en sorry voor foutjes. Laatste keer was ik in Nederland in 2002. Maar ik van Nederland 😍💘
@@bchkvlad Wat goed dat u het zo hebt kunnen leren, mij zou het niet lukken waarschijnlijk. Wel kunt u de "u" gewoon als kleine letter schrijven, en in plaats van "ik ben niet gelijk met u" kunt u beter "ik ben het niet eens met u" zeggen. Ook is de ik-vorm van hebben "heb" en als laatste een paar kleine typefoutjes denk ik. Veel geluk nog met de taal te leren (:
All small countries whose official language is only spoken in their country and is relatively hard for foreigners to understand, are at a certain degree forced to learn english, this also happens with all the Balcanic countries.
I’ve met several Dutch people here in America, and their English was so good I couldn’t even tell until I had talked to them for awhile and heard the slightest accent.
We have 2 families in the Netherlands that are very good friends we have been over to stay with both of them over the years and all of them speak excellent English especially the younger members of the families also when we have been out with them for a meal in a restaurant etc as soon as the waiter/waitress realised we were English they instantly switched to English to explain the menu etc, nearly all were happy to practice their English on actual English people, I must mention the fact that most of the restaurants we went to were out in the country side away from the big tourist cities, we were very surprised by the amount of people who spoke our language with ease and fluency, one of our friends (Frank) who is in his late 40’s had never used his English language skills since he left school and when we first met him his English was quite limited but he was so excited to meet us and to use his long lost skill that his English is now (with the exception of a couple of pronunciation corrections now and then) excellent, when he comes over to England to visit us he’s always eager to visit our pubs and try out the beer and his English on the locals.
You guys are very good at English. I’m from the UK and visited The Netherlands 🇳🇱 recently. The good news is I’m learning Dutch for the purpose of connecting more with the locals, reading 📖 and listening. I’m learning German which I know a bit more than Dutch.
Many people don't realize this, but it's not the school system that provides good ways to learn English, it's the Dutch subtitles and original English/American audio in series and movies thta we watch and when growing up that subconsciously makes us more proficient at English.
My brother lives in Amsterdam & I’m over there a lot. I’ve not met a teenager or adult that didn’t speak English. Senior adults were hit or miss. Kids, about twenty years ago, didn’t speak it, but today, they mostly do. And The Dutch speak it really well.
Their quality of English is excellent and the tone has a certain sing-song pitch which is quite pleasing. Scandinavians do the same, but I find their frequencies tend to go higher, whereas in NL it is more mid-range based. What some folks find jarring at first is the native gh sound in NL - there is some harshness to it, but its raw intensity provides nice contrast to thoroughly amicable people.
heeft sowieso te maken met ons schoolsysteem. Leer nu al 9 jaar lang Engels en ben 17... ik kan me makkelijk in mijn eentje redden in het Engels. Toen ik van de basisschool afkwam gingen zelfs kinderen van groep 3 al Engels leren. Ze konden nog niet eens Nederlands schrijven, een goede verandering, als je het mij vraagt.
Het is ook voor een groot deel dat de media in Nederland weinig vertaald wordt, hierdoor als je tv kijkt zul je veel Engels tegenkomen waarvan je het ook leert. Ik kon zelf al Engels voordat ik het kreeg op de basisschool.
@@myrthelensink4679 Ik zit sinds dit jaar zelf in het onderwijs, en je merkt echt dat sommige leerlingen een paar jaar op het curriculum voorlopen, omdat ze Engelse films/muziek/games hebben
@@Widdekuu91 Zolang Nederlands niet vergeten wordt vind ik het oprecht geen slechte ontwikkeling. Ben niet heel nationalistisch ingesteld, misschien dat we daarom deels van mening verschillen ;).
About 10 years ago I went on vacation to Canada with my family. In a restaurant we got into conversation with a Canadian family. When we said we were from Holland they wondered why we speak English so well?
One of my favourite places so different and friendly. Can honestly say I was shocked how everyone speaks English even in supermarkets what’s normally a nightmare if you can’t speak the language but in Amsterdam it was like shopping back in the uk.
I remember going to the USA and speaking English there when I was 14. My cousins asked me what language we spoke at home, with our friends and found it hard to believe that Dutch was actually our native language. Not sure if they were just being young and silly, or if our English was convincing enough though xD
Yeah definitely Dutch people are very good speaking English. I lived almost five years in the Netherlands, and never had any trouble communicating, the down side though, I wasn't able to practice my Dutch that well
I think French people / government generally have the tendency to protect their language from being contaminated by other languages. They are especially against the english language. So it's partly they don't know how to speak it but more importantly, many refused to learn it. I mean I'm from Canada and a lot of people from the Quebec side of the country doesn't really like english / wants to protect their language. Quite understandable though because that province is surrounded by English Canada + US. I'm only one of the few hundred thousand Canadian who can actually understand both and speak relatively well but the majority of us can't. The majority of Canadians are billinguals though, but just not english and french, usually english or french paired with some other languages (due to immigration).
I studied In Amsterdam when I was too younger and officially English in The Netherlands comes naturally. Thanks to this Beauty nation I got the facilities to know English.
My anecdotal experience with native Dutch people: Pronunciation...not quite right, but better than scotland, ireland, north carolina, australia, alabama, arkansas, nyc, india, manila, boston, montreal... Grammar...probably about a 3rd grade level on average, which is fluent American idioms...surprisingly fluent
Dutch people learn English when they are young. In many big cities in English speaking countries, many people learned English as a second language so in a lot of ways I found the Dutch had more proficient English than here in Toronto.
Tv is de reden, alles was in t Engels met Nederlandse ondertiteling, de laatste 20 jaar is het niveau van kinderen 2 t/m 5 langzaam aan het dalen door het grotere aanbod van na-gesynchroniseerde peuter series
Klopt ! Ik heb nooit Engels geleerd op de lagere school ,maar het geleerd via tv en singletjes , die je dan fonetisch op schreef . Later op de huishoud school kregen we wel Engels en kreeg daar meestal negens of tienen . Toen mijn dochter heel klein was , leerde ik haar Engelse woordjes spelende wijs en dat ging haar goed af . Ik ben het met je eens dat na-synchroniseren niet echt goed is, kinderen , vooral jong, pakken het snel op !
i live in the North of the country, in a little village in the Groningen province, and many people here do not even speak standard Dutch, let alone English, I find that extremely frustrating. I can speak Dutch, but I use it only when I go to Groningen or other parts of the Netherlands, cause here most people answer me in the local dialect. I think it really depends on which part of the Netherlands one comes from. As many people have mentioned here, The Netherlands is not just the capital and the Randstad
When I learned that the English Harry potter books came out months earlier when I was 12 I started reading them instead, that helped more than English schooling. It was a bit weird at first because who's this Dumbledore guy? Only to realize later on it was Perkamentus
I made a friend that lives in France a couple of years ago. She moved from England to France for a bigger house or smt, but anyways she told me ab her English teacher at her school (I have no idea why she's even in that class) and how the teacher tried to have a conversation with her in English, but apparently she didn't speak English that well for an English teacher lol. Also when her grandma went to visit her in France, she was soooo happy that she met me, because I was the only non-french person that actually spoke English very well.
Do not forget that many Dutch words are used in the English language. Sometimes written slightly differently, but the origin of the word is Dutch. This applies even more to the English American language. Simple example The Yankees (famous New York baseball team) is actually JanKees. Bluff (Bluffen) Bundle (Bundel) Candy (Candij) etc. The words often sound the same too, phonetically almost the same. And we are travel-loving people and this for centuries, so that people have left something everywhere (not always well think of the words and the meaning apartheid and slave, we have unfortunately also left these words and their content)
You would think that would make it easier, but because it is so similar, you will confuse it if you make it in English as a Dutch person. However, it does make it easier to understand English..
English is not taught in primary schools. At least it wasn't back in the 90s. Perhaps they have a few classes nowadays. But all the English we knew was from watching TV without subtitles (usually the subs were off by half an hour or so) and playing with computers... By the time I got English at school around age 12 I was already fluent in different English dialects.
@@13tuyuti It really depends on the school, I guess. I went to two public primary schools in Utrecht in the mid-90, and both schools did not have English language education. In one school we did sing some songs in English (and other languages), though.
I walk allot outside and I see my neighbours allot. This Polish guy who lives near me, always greets me when we see eachother (in English). But after 5+ years of this, I started thinking. This guy lives in this country for 5+ years and still he doesn't greet/speak to me in Dutch. Now I just speak all in Dutch, I don't really care if he understand it or not. (Don't get me wrong I like the guy. He's nice)But if I were to live in Poland, I would do my best to speak Polish.
When I hear people speak Polish, or see a Polish numberplate, I'll just say dzien dobry 🙂 It'll surprise them when they then learn I'm actually Dutch. Of course, the only reason I (still) know a little Polish is because I went on holiday there with my parents a few years in a row back in the 70's. It also helped during a recent visit to Prague as Czech is quite similar to Polish 🙂
Yes it is, that exact question is answered by Dutch people on the street here: th-cam.com/video/XlWD8GuQ8Mg/w-d-xo.html (at the end there's also an Indian guy who lives in the netherlands speaking about his experience with english here) I am Dutch and can also confirm that yes it's very possible to live in the netherlands just with knowing english.
Nice video, I was born in Leeuwarden but raised in Zwolle. I used to have English back in primary and high school. I have met many Dutch people that dont speak English at all, but also I met a few people that do speak English. I moved to the UK when I was 15 and I was able to improve my English a bit more. Yes the Netherlands has definitely the best education system hence why Dutch people speak English very well!
Have spent some time here in Australia in hostels in the tropics and met many people from the Netherlands. Their English is great but they tend to slur. As tourists in hostels are permanently drunk and drunk people slur..... Drunk Dutch people are incomprehensible.
Ok I was born in Germany but raised in Landgraff , Nederlands . My parents are American. People always ask me why I only know basic Dutch. Well honestly I know 100 percent I can travel to my favorite country and speak english without a worry. I will take it upon myself to brush up on Dutch but they are shocked when I speak it 😂😂😂
I chat with a young Dutch guy on Tinder and WhatsApp and his English is excellent. He's very fluent and says he speaks English better than German, which is interesting. Dutch is basically a cousin language to both English and German.
In het VK spreken ze overigens meer talen dan alleen het Engels.. Pak maar is een trein vanuit Engeland richting Wales met geluk heb je gelijk een trein die in het tweetalig is anders zie je het wel bij aankomst op station dat bordjes etc allemaal tweetalig is.
I don’t think it’s our education system. I think it’s because we use subtitles in stead of dubbing everything. And Dutch and English are also pretty similar. We are such a tiny country that we relied on trading for many centuries. So therefore we also needed to speak English.
I dunno if I'll ever have the money to travel but one thing I'd like to do is see the country side of countries, and not just the cities. Can I get by with just speaking english in the Dutch Country side or should I learn some dutch for the Rural people? (Problem with me learning languages is that its hard for me to remember complex things as someone with ADHD)
Yes Stockholm really impressed me. Even more because their language is so much different as compared to Dutch which is a lot closer to English than Swedish is.
Perhaps in reading, writing and vocabulary, but their accent is more removed from most (southern) UK accents. As far as intelligibility I would rank Dutch-English first, then German-English, then Swedish-English, Norwegian-English... And unfortunately no one understands Danish people, whatever language they claim to speak.
I had a funny moment in the USA. There an american reacted on my english. He said that my English was better than his. On which I replied that he did not spoke English but American. ;)
Precies dat. En in andere landen wordt vooral muziek uitgezonden in de eigen taal. In Nederland hoor je vooral veel engelstalige (en buitenlandse) muziek.
And I think they are a little overselfassured, which is the main reason for Dunglish. For example the other day I went to my son’s school for the first “intake” and we discussed his school “traject”
I'm always in contact with Dutch men and women who speak English, sometimes I even sleep listening to them speak it, it's beautiful, they have a native level even better than natives, they speak even better than natives, they study English, they are addicted to English and there is no regionalism in their language. Not their English, look, English is full of dialects and languages and versions of English too. Dutch, Swedes, Frisians, Norwegians and Icelanders and Danes should compete to see who has the best English as a playful lady. Italians use a lot of English, even too much of their own language. I also get lost with the Italians, they explain beautiful interpretive English, they beat the natives because they apply the international phonetic alphabet in English. Others do this too, and these guys have another level of English. They encourage you to speak, they excite you and encourage you to speak English even if you are a non-native and just a basic and interpretative level of explanation, they even like to help, of course, people today have to speak international English like Dutch to be understood. In France, it's horrible, most people don't want to speak English and culturally they are left behind, but the French who speak English have good native or almost native language, but there are very few of them, but when you think about it, they also help you a lot with communication, but France and Germany They do need to improve their communication in English. hugs to everyone.
I have been living in the Netherlands for 8 months, maybe because I live in a small town, I have never experienced all these positive things everybody mentioned about the Dutch people’s English. They have an accentnot strong but they do, you can hear it especially when they are articulating the v, s and sh sounds- one man told me about Covid test and we were standing next to a vending machine and I thought he was talking about the coffee taste. Also, maybe again in the town I’m living, many people can speak the basic phrases and when the conversation gets deeper they mske a lot of mistakes and can’t even find the correct words.
I know exactly the accent you talk about, sadly I am suffering a great deal from it. Difference with other countries is that we know the words, we just can't get them out straight. Just as the English speakers have issues with the Dutch G, Dutch from several regions will have difficulties with certain sounds in English as they contradict to what they are used to do. Example in English would be Friesland. English speakers keep saying it with the fries of "frying" instead of the intended "freez" even though they know to produce te sound. However making ee from ie is so contradictive to their language that their brain just can't do it in casual conversation.
It's more the influence from English media than the education system really. You learn a language by using it. Nowadays you'll find Dutch kids, like elementary school age, speak English pretty fluently because of the internet.
Kind of a mix. At school they try to teach us British but then we pick up an accent from American TV shows. And of course most of us still have a bit of an accent that comes from our native language.
Then I must have had a different experience here in Rotterdam. I'm originally from Aruba, there we speak 4 languages (Papiamento, Dutch, English and Spanish). When I moved to the Netherlands to study abroad in college (HBO) I have met a lot of native and non-native students. From what I can recall, the non-natives spoke English better than the natives. The natives student had a lot of trouble speaking english or their pronounciation weren't that good. So to my suprise I came across this video and couldn't believe it. I must say that the only city where I heard native people speaking fluent English is, in Amsterdam, all of the cashiers at the markets or shopping centre speaks English because of how many clients (tourists) they recieve on a daily basis. Not shaming anyone, just flabbergasted about the video and with my experiences during my college times.
It's true and undoubtful, both language are so close related to the same root, which is the North Sea Germanic language. So why question about how good they are good in English?
Het is soms zelfs als franstalige belg met een goeie kennis van het nederlands in de Nederlands moeilijk nederlands te praten: je krijgt vaak een aantwoord in het engels!!
The Spanish person said they’re terrible in Spain, then proceeds to speak English better and a clearer accent than host. The Scottish guy has a really beautiful accent, but in truth he did of course know that the interviewer was not a native speaker as his Dutch accent is quite strong.
I've been in Sweden, the people I met spoke amazingly well English. Also their accent was very good, often sounding like a native speaker (American or UK), and much better than the Dunglish I often hear (like Rutte).
The Dutch are really good at speaking English, not because they study more or have the best schools, but because their language sounds exactly the same.
I have a Co-worker from England, living 25 years in the Netherlands. But he can not speak Dutch, because 99% of the people in the Netherlands speaks perfectly English. And I have a Co-worker from Syria, living 3 years in the Netherlands and speak perfectly Dutch, because nobody speaks Syrian overhere.
I honestly would prefer it if the people learned Dutch before they were taught English. I honestly can't stand the half-Dutch/half-English trend that's going on in here right now. People going; 'Jaaa, dus ik zeg, like, zegmaar van, zo awkward en zij is like echt really pissed, weetjewel en omygod, ik vond het echt superstrange dat dit zo ongelofelijk out of nowhere kwam." Whereas the Dutch version would be; 'Jaaaa, dus ik zei, weetje, zegmaar; 'Oh wat ongemakkelijk zeg!" en zij werd daar echt heel boos om, weetjewel en o mijn god, ik vond het echt heel erg vreemd dat dit zo plotseling uit het niets kwam."
The Dutch speak English fairly well. But there's still a lot of room for improvement. I say this as a native Dutchman. Perhaps I'm too demanding, but I studied at teacher-training college and I still recall my very first lesson extremely well. My professor was a former professional translator and interpreter for the EU parliament. She spent over 45 minutes making clear to us how awful and unjustifiably overconfident the Dutch are about their language skills. After that lesson, I hardly dared to speak in English while she was around. But she really spoke impeccable English and she loved it to correct native English speakers.
There's no mystery here. The answer is exposure. Anyone would be good at any language if they were exposed to it enough, especially from an early age 🤔
To be fair, I'm an ESOL teacher by trade (and a native English speaker), and I didn't find that the interviewees spoke poorly at all. In fact, on the whole they spoke very well; they didn't make that many mistakes, and they spoke quite fluently.
The best English speeking Dutch people live in the East Northeast of Holland. Their accent seems to merge perfectly with English . Most of our best singers are borne in that region .
Some people from the Netherlands are so good at English and have accents that can be persuasively similar to accents that are found in North America. If you want to have a bit of fun, you can try tricking Americans or Canadians over the internet through voice chats.
I am an ace in English as long as I don't open my mouth. Writing and reading on "expert level" but when I talk you know... that dude is Dutch. I have a horrible fat accent.
Het is geen afgeleidde van het Nederlands. Het is een zustertaal. Engels is net als het Nederlands een Germaanse taal met veel Deense en Saksische invloeden. Het schijnt dat Fries nog dichterbij het Engels staat dan Nederlands.
@@BluuurghAg9 Bûter, brea en griene tsiis is goed ingelsk en goed Frysk. Grien/tsiis en green/cheese hebben dezelfde uitspraak, bûter/butter wel iets anders
Fun fact. The most widely used Dutch word on the planet is : boss. (baas). It could have been any word, like fork or lemon but it just had to be the guy in charge. Now deal with it.
As well as the education system, I believe the good English spoken in the Netherlands is due to the amount of English language television - put out with sub-titles rather than dubbed into Dutch. Scandinavians have the same advantage, and also mostly speak excellent English.
And its easy to learn cause Emglish is our brother langauge. And way easier then German
Indubitably. I'm old enough to have grown up in the eastern part of the Netherlands where we had 5 tv channels, 3 of the German and the German ones were also broadcasing in the (Saturday and Sunday) afternoon with a lot of children's programs. They dub everything, so everything was German and mostly the accent of the neighboring region. So I learned German-accent German early on. And then Ducht tv had a lot of English movies and tv, so Iearned some of that. Before I officially learned it in school (along with French), I already had a basis. Plus a lot of music in English (and German and French) helped too.
@@RicoLee27 nee hoor, ik ben niet gelijk met U. Ik kwam naar Nederland en heeft geleerd Nederlands gevoon van "straat ". dus geen school of so iets en daar ben ik heel trots van!
Maar Nederlands en Duits zijn meer dichter dan Nederlands en Engels! Dat zeker so! Graag te horen van U, als bent U niet gelijk met mijn en sorry voor foutjes. Laatste keer was ik in Nederland in 2002. Maar ik van Nederland 😍💘
@@bchkvlad Wat goed dat u het zo hebt kunnen leren, mij zou het niet lukken waarschijnlijk. Wel kunt u de "u" gewoon als kleine letter schrijven, en in plaats van "ik ben niet gelijk met u" kunt u beter "ik ben het niet eens met u" zeggen. Ook is de ik-vorm van hebben "heb" en als laatste een paar kleine typefoutjes denk ik. Veel geluk nog met de taal te leren (:
All small countries whose official language is only spoken in their country and is relatively hard for foreigners to understand, are at a certain degree forced to learn english, this also happens with all the Balcanic countries.
I’ve met several Dutch people here in America, and their English was so good I couldn’t even tell until I had talked to them for awhile and heard the slightest accent.
But americans their English is not good so you can’t compare
@@user-ie6jr4bg1w u drunk
@@jorisk.2915 are you?
@@jorisk.2915 I mean our former and current president can't even be understood so, understandable.
We have 2 families in the Netherlands that are very good friends we have been over to stay with both of them over the years and all of them speak excellent English especially the younger members of the families also when we have been out with them for a meal in a restaurant etc as soon as the waiter/waitress realised we were English they instantly switched to English to explain the menu etc, nearly all were happy to practice their English on actual English people, I must mention the fact that most of the restaurants we went to were out in the country side away from the big tourist cities, we were very surprised by the amount of people who spoke our language with ease and fluency, one of our friends (Frank) who is in his late 40’s had never used his English language skills since he left school and when we first met him his English was quite limited but he was so excited to meet us and to use his long lost skill that his English is now (with the exception of a couple of pronunciation corrections now and then) excellent, when he comes over to England to visit us he’s always eager to visit our pubs and try out the beer and his English on the locals.
2:20
You guys are very good at English. I’m from the UK and visited The Netherlands 🇳🇱 recently. The good news is I’m learning Dutch for the purpose of connecting more with the locals, reading 📖 and listening. I’m learning German which I know a bit more than Dutch.
Many people don't realize this, but it's not the school system that provides good ways to learn English, it's the Dutch subtitles and original English/American audio in series and movies thta we watch and when growing up that subconsciously makes us more proficient at English.
It is not, it's their language that sounds exactly like English.
My brother lives in Amsterdam & I’m over there a lot. I’ve not met a teenager or adult that didn’t speak English. Senior adults were hit or miss. Kids, about twenty years ago, didn’t speak it, but today, they mostly do. And The Dutch speak it really well.
Their quality of English is excellent and the tone has a certain sing-song pitch which is quite pleasing. Scandinavians do the same, but I find their frequencies tend to go higher, whereas in NL it is more mid-range based. What some folks find jarring at first is the native gh sound in NL - there is some harshness to it, but its raw intensity provides nice contrast to thoroughly amicable people.
That's because rythm is extremely important in dutch sentences. Speaking English we tend to use the same rythm as we do in speaking dutch
heeft sowieso te maken met ons schoolsysteem. Leer nu al 9 jaar lang Engels en ben 17... ik kan me makkelijk in mijn eentje redden in het Engels. Toen ik van de basisschool afkwam gingen zelfs kinderen van groep 3 al Engels leren. Ze konden nog niet eens Nederlands schrijven, een goede verandering, als je het mij vraagt.
ik heb mezelf engels geleerd haha maby that is the reason why my english is so fkd up hahahaaaa
Het is ook voor een groot deel dat de media in Nederland weinig vertaald wordt, hierdoor als je tv kijkt zul je veel Engels tegenkomen waarvan je het ook leert. Ik kon zelf al Engels voordat ik het kreeg op de basisschool.
@@myrthelensink4679 Ik zit sinds dit jaar zelf in het onderwijs, en je merkt echt dat sommige leerlingen een paar jaar op het curriculum voorlopen, omdat ze Engelse films/muziek/games hebben
Dat is sarcasme toch? Engels leren voordat je Nederlands leert? Je eigen taal niet eens meer begrijpen, omdat je dan internationaal kunt gaan werken?
@@Widdekuu91 Zolang Nederlands niet vergeten wordt vind ik het oprecht geen slechte ontwikkeling. Ben niet heel nationalistisch ingesteld, misschien dat we daarom deels van mening verschillen ;).
About 10 years ago I went on vacation to Canada with my family. In a restaurant we got into conversation with a Canadian family. When we said we were from Holland they wondered why we speak English so well?
why, though? is it education?
and they reason was.........?
One of my favourite places so different and friendly. Can honestly say I was shocked how everyone speaks English even in supermarkets what’s normally a nightmare if you can’t speak the language but in Amsterdam it was like shopping back in the uk.
I remember going to the USA and speaking English there when I was 14. My cousins asked me what language we spoke at home, with our friends and found it hard to believe that Dutch was actually our native language. Not sure if they were just being young and silly, or if our English was convincing enough though xD
Are the subs even needed? Everyone in Amsterdam knows English lol.
Lol
You mean the Netherlands -_-
Amsterdam is our capital
*I hate it when people call our country "Amsterdam" just like you said, IT'S OUR DARN CAPITAL!*
Everyone thinks Netherlands is Amsterdam. Netherlands is more than Amsterdam. 😅Amsterdam is just a city and not all dutch people speak English…
True lol
Yeah definitely Dutch people are very good speaking English. I lived almost five years in the Netherlands, and never had any trouble communicating, the down side though, I wasn't able to practice my Dutch that well
In France, they know English they just pretend not to understand you lol
Why should they speak Englishm though?
I think French people / government generally have the tendency to protect their language from being contaminated by other languages. They are especially against the english language. So it's partly they don't know how to speak it but more importantly, many refused to learn it. I mean I'm from Canada and a lot of people from the Quebec side of the country doesn't really like english / wants to protect their language. Quite understandable though because that province is surrounded by English Canada + US. I'm only one of the few hundred thousand Canadian who can actually understand both and speak relatively well but the majority of us can't. The majority of Canadians are billinguals though, but just not english and french, usually english or french paired with some other languages (due to immigration).
@@raikozy35 I think you may be right, as shown by French Canadian and Vichy French. They were prepared to speak German with a French accent.
@@brolintoro2157 Because it's a world language?
@@brolintoro2157 😶
I studied In Amsterdam when I was too younger and officially English in The Netherlands comes naturally.
Thanks to this Beauty nation I got the facilities to know English.
My anecdotal experience with native Dutch people:
Pronunciation...not quite right, but better than scotland, ireland, north carolina, australia, alabama, arkansas, nyc, india, manila, boston, montreal...
Grammar...probably about a 3rd grade level on average, which is fluent
American idioms...surprisingly fluent
Dutch people learn English when they are young. In many big cities in English speaking countries, many people learned English as a second language so in a lot of ways I found the Dutch had more proficient English than here in Toronto.
Tv is de reden, alles was in t Engels met Nederlandse ondertiteling, de laatste 20 jaar is het niveau van kinderen 2 t/m 5 langzaam aan het dalen door het grotere aanbod van na-gesynchroniseerde peuter series
Klopt ! Ik heb nooit Engels geleerd op de lagere school ,maar het geleerd via tv en singletjes , die je dan fonetisch op schreef .
Later op de huishoud school kregen we wel Engels en kreeg daar meestal negens of tienen .
Toen mijn dochter heel klein was , leerde ik haar Engelse woordjes spelende wijs en dat ging haar goed af .
Ik ben het met je eens dat na-synchroniseren niet echt goed is, kinderen , vooral jong, pakken het snel op !
Al in de jaren 70 was alles al in het Engels op tv !!
i live in the North of the country, in a little village in the Groningen province, and many people here do not even speak standard Dutch, let alone English, I find that extremely frustrating. I can speak Dutch, but I use it only when I go to Groningen or other parts of the Netherlands, cause here most people answer me in the local dialect. I think it really depends on which part of the Netherlands one comes from. As many people have mentioned here, The Netherlands is not just the capital and the Randstad
You are right. In big cities english is more common.
When I learned that the English Harry potter books came out months earlier when I was 12 I started reading them instead, that helped more than English schooling. It was a bit weird at first because who's this Dumbledore guy? Only to realize later on it was Perkamentus
I made a friend that lives in France a couple of years ago. She moved from England to France for a bigger house or smt, but anyways she told me ab her English teacher at her school (I have no idea why she's even in that class) and how the teacher tried to have a conversation with her in English, but apparently she didn't speak English that well for an English teacher lol. Also when her grandma went to visit her in France, she was soooo happy that she met me, because I was the only non-french person that actually spoke English very well.
Do not forget that many Dutch words are used in the English language. Sometimes written slightly differently, but the origin of the word is Dutch. This applies even more to the English American language. Simple example The Yankees (famous New York baseball team) is actually JanKees. Bluff (Bluffen) Bundle (Bundel) Candy (Candij) etc. The words often sound the same too, phonetically almost the same. And we are travel-loving people and this for centuries, so that people have left something everywhere (not always well think of the words and the meaning apartheid and slave, we have unfortunately also left these words and their content)
Not the vocabulary, for a Spanish speaker or French speaker is easier to identify words than a dutch speaker.
Iknew of many of thewords (other examples would be cookie, kielhaulen, boss) but candy was a new one for me... but seeing it it is soooo obvious lol.
You would think that would make it easier, but because it is so similar, you will confuse it if you make it in English as a Dutch person. However, it does make it easier to understand English..
Yankees is probably not from JanKees but Jannekens as in soldiers (Johnnie soldier)
The very word that we English (and no doubt others) use to describe ourselves, i.e. aloof, is itself of Dutch origin
English is not taught in primary schools. At least it wasn't back in the 90s. Perhaps they have a few classes nowadays. But all the English we knew was from watching TV without subtitles (usually the subs were off by half an hour or so) and playing with computers... By the time I got English at school around age 12 I was already fluent in different English dialects.
I had English classes in the last two years of primary school, in the late 80s.
@@13tuyuti It really depends on the school, I guess. I went to two public primary schools in Utrecht in the mid-90, and both schools did not have English language education. In one school we did sing some songs in English (and other languages), though.
I walk allot outside and I see my neighbours allot.
This Polish guy who lives near me, always greets me when we see eachother (in English).
But after 5+ years of this, I started thinking.
This guy lives in this country for 5+ years and still he doesn't greet/speak to me in Dutch.
Now I just speak all in Dutch, I don't really care if he understand it or not. (Don't get me wrong I like the guy. He's nice)But if I were to live in Poland, I would do my best to speak Polish.
When I hear people speak Polish, or see a Polish numberplate, I'll just say dzien dobry 🙂 It'll surprise them when they then learn I'm actually Dutch. Of course, the only reason I (still) know a little Polish is because I went on holiday there with my parents a few years in a row back in the 70's. It also helped during a recent visit to Prague as Czech is quite similar to Polish 🙂
Do you think it would be possible to live in the netherlands just with knowing english
Yes it is, that exact question is answered by Dutch people on the street here: th-cam.com/video/XlWD8GuQ8Mg/w-d-xo.html (at the end there's also an Indian guy who lives in the netherlands speaking about his experience with english here)
I am Dutch and can also confirm that yes it's very possible to live in the netherlands just with knowing english.
Many people do. I have even come across people who managed to land a job as a waiter without knowing Dutch.
Nice video, I was born in Leeuwarden but raised in Zwolle. I used to have English back in primary and high school. I have met many Dutch people that dont speak English at all, but also I met a few people that do speak English. I moved to the UK when I was 15 and I was able to improve my English a bit more. Yes the Netherlands has definitely the best education system hence why Dutch people speak English very well!
Niet waar. Don't generalise please. Not everyone speaks English well in NL.
Have spent some time here in Australia in hostels in the tropics and met many people from the Netherlands. Their English is great but they tend to slur. As tourists in hostels are permanently drunk and drunk people slur.....
Drunk Dutch people are incomprehensible.
3:25 Does the Scottish guy not think Scotland's in Europe?
All of us Scots know that Scotland is part of South America
Dutch are best for English, plus we arguably were taken over by Dutch by William of Orange. LOL
officially the UK is still part of the Netherlands but the world is not agreeing with it :P
@@arjenb8403 True, or the Netherlands is part of Great Britain. LOL
@@axelusul ask The Ruyter, he'll tell you the right answer
@@arjenb8403 Thanks is he Ruyter de Hair the famous actor. LOL
@@axelusul Michiel de Ruyter xd
my answer is YESSSS and I love the accent!!
Ok I was born in Germany but raised in Landgraff , Nederlands . My parents are American. People always ask me why I only know basic Dutch. Well honestly I know 100 percent I can travel to my favorite country and speak english without a worry. I will take it upon myself to brush up on Dutch but they are shocked when I speak it 😂😂😂
Okay but... Did you really have to get the name of your own country wrong :(
I chat with a young Dutch guy on Tinder and WhatsApp and his English is excellent. He's very fluent and says he speaks English better than German, which is interesting. Dutch is basically a cousin language to both English and German.
Uk, Ireland, Scandinavia, Netherlands and Portugal.
In het VK spreken ze overigens meer talen dan alleen het Engels.. Pak maar is een trein vanuit Engeland richting Wales met geluk heb je gelijk een trein die in het tweetalig is anders zie je het wel bij aankomst op station dat bordjes etc allemaal tweetalig is.
Dat omdat alle films en series gewoon in het Engels zijn, met ondertiteling.
I don’t think it’s our education system. I think it’s because we use subtitles in stead of dubbing everything.
And Dutch and English are also pretty similar.
We are such a tiny country that we relied on trading for many centuries. So therefore we also needed to speak English.
Nope, it's because their language sounds exactly like English, thats why they sound so good.
I dunno if I'll ever have the money to travel but one thing I'd like to do is see the country side of countries, and not just the cities.
Can I get by with just speaking english in the Dutch Country side or should I learn some dutch for the Rural people?
(Problem with me learning languages is that its hard for me to remember complex things as someone with ADHD)
The Dutch are good at English, but the Scandinavians are just as good
I agree! I travelled to Swedish Lapland and everyone in Sweden speaks very good English and I think it's not different in Denmark, Norway and Finland.
Yes Stockholm really impressed me. Even more because their language is so much different as compared to Dutch which is a lot closer to English than Swedish is.
Perhaps in reading, writing and vocabulary, but their accent is more removed from most (southern) UK accents. As far as intelligibility I would rank Dutch-English first, then German-English, then Swedish-English, Norwegian-English... And unfortunately no one understands Danish people, whatever language they claim to speak.
It is also the closest language to English. It should be the best. Why are people so surpised! Dumb Fuckers!
I love the sound of Italians speaking English
You do tend to slur some vowels and consonants, but, other than that, its perfect
Well, I mean, thats an accent.
I had a funny moment in the USA. There an american reacted on my english. He said that my English was better than his. On which I replied that he did not spoke English but American. ;)
Many Americans used slangs
I'd say about 50-75% of them speak english. Roughly. So if you got a group of 5 people, at least 1-2 will speak it. The key is in the numbers.
denk dat het ook is dat we veel tv shows zien in het engels en dat ze niet ingesproken worden in het nederlands
Precies dat. En in andere landen wordt vooral muziek uitgezonden in de eigen taal. In Nederland hoor je vooral veel engelstalige (en buitenlandse) muziek.
Ik denk dat het een combinatie is, je leert Engels op school, die basis gebruik je om je woordenschat makkelijker op te bouwen via series, films etc.
Absolutely the Dutch are the top for speaking English.
And I think they are a little overselfassured, which is the main reason for Dunglish. For example the other day I went to my son’s school for the first “intake” and we discussed his school “traject”
I'm always in contact with Dutch men and women who speak English, sometimes I even sleep listening to them speak it, it's beautiful, they have a native level even better than natives, they speak even better than natives, they study English, they are addicted to English and there is no regionalism in their language. Not their English, look, English is full of dialects and languages and versions of English too. Dutch, Swedes, Frisians, Norwegians and Icelanders and Danes should compete to see who has the best English as a playful lady. Italians use a lot of English, even too much of their own language. I also get lost with the Italians, they explain beautiful interpretive English, they beat the natives because they apply the international phonetic alphabet in English. Others do this too, and these guys have another level of English. They encourage you to speak, they excite you and encourage you to speak English even if you are a non-native and just a basic and interpretative level of explanation, they even like to help, of course, people today have to speak international English like Dutch to be understood. In France, it's horrible, most people don't want to speak English and culturally they are left behind, but the French who speak English have good native or almost native language, but there are very few of them, but when you think about it, they also help you a lot with communication, but France and Germany They do need to improve their communication in English. hugs to everyone.
Absolutely the best are the Dutch in english .
I have been living in the Netherlands for 8 months, maybe because I live in a small town, I have never experienced all these positive things everybody mentioned about the Dutch people’s English. They have an accentnot strong but they do, you can hear it especially when they are articulating the v, s and sh sounds- one man told me about Covid test and we were standing next to a vending machine and I thought he was talking about the coffee taste. Also, maybe again in the town I’m living, many people can speak the basic phrases and when the conversation gets deeper they mske a lot of mistakes and can’t even find the correct words.
I know exactly the accent you talk about, sadly I am suffering a great deal from it. Difference with other countries is that we know the words, we just can't get them out straight. Just as the English speakers have issues with the Dutch G, Dutch from several regions will have difficulties with certain sounds in English as they contradict to what they are used to do.
Example in English would be Friesland. English speakers keep saying it with the fries of "frying" instead of the intended "freez" even though they know to produce te sound. However making ee from ie is so contradictive to their language that their brain just can't do it in casual conversation.
@@mavadelo Hahaha, that must be so funny, they must be expecting some McDonalds and Burger Kings over there!
Newsflash: people who learn a foreign language have an accent. You'd know that if you ever tried.
It's more the influence from English media than the education system really. You learn a language by using it. Nowadays you'll find Dutch kids, like elementary school age, speak English pretty fluently because of the internet.
or because Dutch and English are very closely related
Do European speak British accent or American accent?
Kind of a mix. At school they try to teach us British but then we pick up an accent from American TV shows. And of course most of us still have a bit of an accent that comes from our native language.
I find it very funny that the Scandinavians brought Anglo-Saxon to England, and boy now English is spread all over Northern Europe
Then I must have had a different experience here in Rotterdam. I'm originally from Aruba, there we speak 4 languages (Papiamento, Dutch, English and Spanish). When I moved to the Netherlands to study abroad in college (HBO) I have met a lot of native and non-native students. From what I can recall, the non-natives spoke English better than the natives. The natives student had a lot of trouble speaking english or their pronounciation weren't that good. So to my suprise I came across this video and couldn't believe it.
I must say that the only city where I heard native people speaking fluent English is, in Amsterdam, all of the cashiers at the markets or shopping centre speaks English because of how many clients (tourists) they recieve on a daily basis.
Not shaming anyone, just flabbergasted about the video and with my experiences during my college times.
It's true and undoubtful, both language are so close related to the same root, which is the North Sea Germanic language. So why question about how good they are good in English?
Het is soms zelfs als franstalige belg met een goeie kennis van het nederlands in de Nederlands moeilijk nederlands te praten: je krijgt vaak een aantwoord in het engels!!
The Spanish person said they’re terrible in Spain, then proceeds to speak English better and a clearer accent than host. The Scottish guy has a really beautiful accent, but in truth he did of course know that the interviewer was not a native speaker as his Dutch accent is quite strong.
I love dutch English accent
I've been in Sweden, the people I met spoke amazingly well English. Also their accent was very good, often sounding like a native speaker (American or UK), and much better than the Dunglish I often hear (like Rutte).
I suppose not, because grammatically the caption of this video should read: "Are the Dutch really that good AT English?" 🤣
It's not the school system, it's not the 'trading nation', it's subbing not dubbing.
The Dutch are really good at speaking English, not because they study more or have the best schools, but because their language sounds exactly the same.
Some people are good at it but not everyone. It depens!
the Dutch are amazing at English that is very true
English learning for kids already start at Kindergarten
I have a Co-worker from England, living 25 years in the Netherlands.
But he can not speak Dutch, because 99% of the people in the Netherlands speaks perfectly English.
And I have a Co-worker from Syria, living 3 years in the Netherlands and speak perfectly Dutch, because nobody speaks Syrian overhere.
@@janfeelders5733 You made a small grammatical mistake. You should have used perfect rather than perfectly.
@@garytulie8567 You overlooked "speaks" in the second sentence which should be "speak" and "speak" in the last sentence which should be "speaks". 😉
I speak English very well.. nog niet zo snel, but that komt nog wel... :P
We speak better English than others speaks Dutch.
*than
*others speak
English is the first language of amsterdam
They speak american english or british?
Dutch English
Try speak english in rural netherlands, villages, and small towns, youll discover great things
i live in rural Netherlands and many don't even speak standard Dutch, let alone any other foreign language.
1:34 shits true.
*shit's
It's cool knowing other languages, but why do people in the Netherlands take such pride in speaking English? What is so good about it?
I honestly would prefer it if the people learned Dutch before they were taught English.
I honestly can't stand the half-Dutch/half-English trend that's going on in here right now.
People going; 'Jaaa, dus ik zeg, like, zegmaar van, zo awkward en zij is like echt really pissed, weetjewel en omygod, ik vond het echt superstrange dat dit zo ongelofelijk out of nowhere kwam."
Whereas the Dutch version would be; 'Jaaaa, dus ik zei, weetje, zegmaar; 'Oh wat ongemakkelijk zeg!" en zij werd daar echt heel boos om, weetjewel en o mijn god, ik vond het echt heel erg vreemd dat dit zo plotseling uit het niets kwam."
@@Widdekuu91 You're so totally right....
That good? Yep! Try outstanding ! 😀
The Dutch speak English fairly well. But there's still a lot of room for improvement. I say this as a native Dutchman. Perhaps I'm too demanding, but I studied at teacher-training college and I still recall my very first lesson extremely well. My professor was a former professional translator and interpreter for the EU parliament. She spent over 45 minutes making clear to us how awful and unjustifiably overconfident the Dutch are about their language skills. After that lesson, I hardly dared to speak in English while she was around. But she really spoke impeccable English and she loved it to correct native English speakers.
Wtf😂
Correct native speakers?
There's no mystery here. The answer is exposure. Anyone would be good at any language if they were exposed to it enough, especially from an early age 🤔
They speak good English
Nederlanders spreek fantastiche Engels. And that's from a Brit who speaks Flemish and French!
Ik
but this guy, is having an splaak geblek in dutch
We've interviewed several people who speak English very poorly in an endeavor to pride pride ourselves.
To be fair, I'm an ESOL teacher by trade (and a native English speaker), and I didn't find that the interviewees spoke poorly at all. In fact, on the whole they spoke very well; they didn't make that many mistakes, and they spoke quite fluently.
I think Dutch pronunciation of English is cute
The best English speeking Dutch people live in the East Northeast of Holland.
Their accent seems to merge perfectly with English .
Most of our best singers are borne in that region .
At english not in english. And dutch people do not speak english as welk as you may think
Some people from the Netherlands are so good at English and have accents that can be persuasively similar to accents that are found in North America.
If you want to have a bit of fun, you can try tricking Americans or Canadians over the internet through voice chats.
I am an ace in English as long as I don't open my mouth. Writing and reading on "expert level" but when I talk you know... that dude is Dutch. I have a horrible fat accent.
01:10 "Like we don't like speak that much like English, like like". Yeah, you don't say
01:15 Like wth, like is he like serious?
Italian people sound like they're from New York or Boston
you watch too many movies. :) italian accent is horrible...
The New York "Italian" accent sounds more Russian than Italian.
Pronunciation is a problem. Grammatics is ok to good. Vocabulary is ok to good.
Nah, from what I gather from the comments here people like our accent.
@@13tuyuti They seem to like problematic
pronunciation!
@@TTTzzzz or they realize that 99% of all people who learn a foreign language has an accent.
The man in the street speaks English ok, but politicians do so in a horrible way.
Like die gast met die like ring in z'n oor is echt like een valley girl, like..
just ask the Americans, which language they also speak.... probably Spanish, and that's it....
bad bunny 1:05
Niet zo verwonderlijk, Engels is een afgeleide van Nederlands, maar de Engelsen horen dat natuurlijk
niet zo graag.
Het is geen afgeleidde van het Nederlands. Het is een zustertaal. Engels is net als het Nederlands een Germaanse taal met veel Deense en Saksische invloeden. Het schijnt dat Fries nog dichterbij het Engels staat dan Nederlands.
@@BluuurghAg9 In Friesland spelen ze dan ook Soccer ;) Maar het lijkt inderdaad soms wel alsof de grote volksverhuizing is vergeten.
@@BluuurghAg9 Bûter, brea en griene tsiis is goed ingelsk en goed Frysk. Grien/tsiis en green/cheese hebben dezelfde uitspraak, bûter/butter wel iets anders
DUTCH ARE GREAT ENGLISH SPEAKERS WITH GREAT ACCENT ALMOST WITH AMERICAN ACCENT
yalklka arb ade at inglejhs
I couldn’t disagree more
ever heard of stonecoal english? You speak it.....
no
The Dutch people are good in English.Some character needs to change.
Fun fact. The most widely used Dutch word on the planet is : boss. (baas). It could have been any word, like fork or lemon but it just had to be the guy in charge. Now deal with it.