I suspect that, like most all of the Dutch people I've ever met, you probably have fluency in at least 4 languages and could get by in a couple more! It reminds me of the day I arrived in Zouterwoude for my first day of work at the network centre where I'd just secured a 3 months contract. I'd travelled by train from Amsterdam where the client had organised a week's hotel accommodation to give us (there were 2 of us) time to sort out a more suitable and local place to stay for the duration of the contract. Anyway, came out of the rail station and - lo and behold - the bus station is right there. Marvellous! Here in Britain you might get a stop or two but there it was a row of stops and a tunround - a proper terminus. I looked at all the signs by the individual stands but couldn't work out which would get me to the industrial estate where the site was located so I asked the driver sat in the cab of the first bus ... "Excuse me, could you tell me which bus I need to get me to 'the Heineken'?" "Yes, of course. It's at stand number 4. Ask the driver to tell you when the bus is approaching the Heineken." "Ah, OK - thank you!" "No problem. Have a good day." So, off I trotted down to stand number 4 (or whatever stand it actually was ... this was in 1989 and my memory wasn't good even then!) hopped onto the waiting bus and said to the driver ... "Can I have a single to Heineken, please? And would you let me know when we're there, please." "Yes, of course. Your ticket - thank you." I sat down feeling quite smug and pleased with myself. But, my musing on the excitement of starting a 3 months contract in Holland was, quite suddenly, interrupted by the dawning of realisation that I'd carried out a conversation, albeit very brief, with two bus drivers ENTIRELY in English! If I'd been Dutch and working a 3 month contract in Exeter and had arrived at the bus station there to ask a driver in Dutch where I could get a bus to Marsh Barton he/she would have looked at me as if I'd just landed from outer space and had inhabited the body of an earthling without learning English ... let alone Debonian! Of course, I soon got to know that pretty much everybody in Holland speaks and, more importantly, understands English to a very high standard - often from a very early age. But it was a revelation that has stayed with me. No offence intended to UK bus drivers but I seriously doubt that more than a handful of them would class themselves as multi-lingual, whereas I suspect that the vast majority of Dutch bus drivers would speak at least two languages and often 3 or 4. As a wholly irrelevant aside, Wim, your gloves have arrived. I'll repackage them and try to get them to Jan tomorrow. Apologies if I've derailed this thread ...... t spijt me. )
No worries about derailing Adie- we all do it! as for languages - being such a tiny country we need to be able to express ourselves in other tongues, we can't expect to be understood elsewhere! Cheers for the gloves, I'm very grateful!
There’s a bloody good reason why they all speak better English, French, German, etc than anyone else. It has nothing to do with being able to sell something to the next passing army either! They are just jolly clever people. Edit: I hear more kids are being taught Mandarin and Russian these days.
I actually do speak a bit of Mandarin, too... This might be helpful: Wo xiang yao yi ping pijiu, ma shang! 我想要一瓶啤酒, 马上!
I almost married a Dutch girl. She didn’t know that at the time. Was visiting some University friends in their North London slum house. I was savouring a coffee in the Kitchen when the most beautiful and intelligent woman I have ever met walked into the kitchen. We chatted excitedly about this and that for an hour or three. We lost track of time a bit… I think she was seriously well connected in Amsterdam. For some unfathomable reason I got up and drove home and stupidly didn’t ask for her number/details. To this day I can’t remember her name or why the hell I was (and still am) a total Twat.
Yeah right. As Morrissey once sung (if that is the right description for his awful vocals) “ Heaven knows I’m miserable now”. Hey, I have an idea!!! The Netherlands is a really small place right? Surely if you ask around you might find a random (slightly wrinkly) woman that was in London in early 1990’s who is keen to meet up with old ‘chance’ acquaintances.
Errr... we're 17 plus million at present, and even if I were to confine my investigations to Amsterdam, that'd still be 600.000 plus people - admittely not too many attractive wrinklies amongst them but still... if you could be slightly more specific I'd be glad to be of help though...
And to back up Cyborgs statements about the British ability to speak Dutch, I’ve been going there to the Dutch TT for 30 odd years and all I can manage is “guten morgen”, “Dank u vel” , “Tot ziens.” Also within my repertoire Ive got to know what “slagroom“ means and it’s not what many may think…
True dat! That's EXACTLY what our twit of a VP, Kamala Harris, just did in France! She spoke to the French press, in English, doing her imitation of a Frenchman speaking English with a French accent!
I love my '06 Ford Explorer. It's like me. It's big, it's old, it has a lotta miles on it, but everything works and it still looks good! I've owned it for several years now, but I have always been bugged by the alloy wheels. They are dented to shit! I don't know what the previous owner was driving over, or if they just couldn't judge how close they were to the curb, but there were bungs all over all four wheels. I try to keep it looking decent. It's not so shabby that I'm ashamed to have my friends see me in it, but it's not so nice that I'm afraid to drive through the woods to get to a fishing hole. Anyhow, I've been haunting Craigslist (it's become my newest addiction) and found a set of beautiful take-offs from an '08 Explorer. $150 for the set of four!!! Bought them and had them mounted and balanced today. Happy now.