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DUTCH can speak how good ENGLISH?
DUTCH is the people who speak the best ENGLSIH except for the natives as well known.
But, I mean in the aspect of accent.Do you think they suppass the AUSTRALIAN?or the New zealander? Singaporer? I believe so.
As far as I know the Dutch do not speak English natively ... I have no idea how they could ever surpass natives like the Australians, New Zealanders or Singaporese.
The Dutch accent when speaking English is very noticable, it's probably the relatively extended knowledge of English vocabulary that gives them the repution of being good English speakers, not pronounciation.
Sander is right in his views. You see how he spelled pronunciation. That means the Dutch can't write as good as native speakers. No matter how good we ESL students are at english we are going to make mistakes here and there in our construction of sentences. We have to put up with it
>>Sander is right in his views. You see how he spelled pronunciation. That means the Dutch can't write as good as native speakers. No matter how good we ESL students are at english we are going to make mistakes here and there in our construction of sentences. We have to put up with it<<
That is a minor spelling mistake that one could easily see a native speaker make. Spelling has nothing to do with how well one *speaks* a given language.
have you heard of Singaporese accent?
took A LOT OF energy to understand
With regards to the Singaporean accent, that depends greatly on the speaker's level of education. The majority are however second language speakers at best, third or fourth language speakers at worst.
Well, I am from the Netherlands and there is something rather distinctive about 'the dutch-english'.(often called Dunglish),While I personally (and many others ) have adapted the British accent, many other dutch men/women tend to pronounce english words in a dutch manner.
It is hard to describe how it sounds, but I can assure you that once you hear a regular dutch man/woman speak english (or more fittingly 'dunglish') you will notice. I have to point out though that the dutch do have a reasonable vocabulary -despite what this picture will make you believe; http://www.dunglish.nl/?p=195 ;-) In comparison to other countries (France, Germany, Austria etc..) the dutch speak good english.
But we also have to point out that the Dutch are very diligent language learners (compared to the English, Germans, French,...) which may also have something to do with their educational system! You will hardly find a Dutch who cannot speak in at least one foreign language. I myself already met a lot who were able to speak in German!
You can't compare the foreign language lessons in elementary school between the Netherlands and, let's say Germany - there this is only done in an 'integral way' and furthermore not focused on the communicative function of that language.
In my opinion, the reason why so many Dutch people speak good English (and German) is because their own linguistic territory is so small. I mean, apart from the Netherlands, Belgium is the only other European country where Dutch is spoken (actually, only the Northern part of Belgium). They've simply got no choice: the Dutch have to learn the foreign man's language because the foreign man won't learn Dutch. And that's why so many Dutch people speak really good English (the global language) and German (their most important neighbour's language). The same goes on for most people who speak relatively "small" languages: the Swedish, the Danish, the Norwegians, etc. On the contrary, people who speak a major language as a mothertongue, are generally not very good at other languages. Adjectives such as "lazy", "arrogant" and "ignorant" might come to one's mind, but actually, I find it quite understandable (not excusable) that these people are unilingual. English-speakers are "spoiled": almost anywhere on this planet, some kind of English is spoken and understood. The French speak a language which is spoken on all five continents (let's just skip Antarctica and the penguins) and they tend to only travel to these other francophone countries. That is, if they travel at all. Many French seem to prefer spending their holidays in France. And why shoudn't they? I mean, why should they travel to the other end of the world if they have everything one could ever want on a holiday (sun, beaches, mountains, history, forests, cultural cities, castles, wine estates) right in their own country? The Spanish have Latin America as their playground and, like the French, tend to stick with Spain when it comes to travelling. A Chinese person shares his mothertongue with 1,2 billion people... My concluion: people who speak relatively "unimportant" languages are good at foreign languages because they've simply got no other choice. People who speak a world scale language are generally not good at foreign languages because they don't really feel the need. Look at Belgium: a bilingual country with one "small" language (Dutch) and one "major" language (French). Traditionally, the Flemish (Dutch-speaking) Belgians are very fluent in English and French, while generally speaking, the francophone Belgians tend to be perfectly... unilingual French-speakers... :-)
ALI well said! great analysis
I am considering studying in the Netherlands next year.I think it's a quite intersting country where according to agencies 90 percent people can speak fluent English.and I also heard that Dutch may required whenever you want to find a part-time job except the overlow paid.so that led me to wonder how well they can master. since I am under the impression that Dutch speak well English,a question poped:why Dutch cannot count into the native English speaker group?
It's wrong to say that 90% of the Dutch are fluent in English. They aren't native speakers of the English language, simply because it is not their first language and they don't use it in everyday situations; they make more mistakes than a true native speaker, and so don't speak it "properly".
Compared to other nations the Dutch speak good English because:
- They are a small nation speaking a small language and need to learn other languages, particularly because of their trade centred economy. - English is relatively easy for them, because of Dutch and English being closely related and because they are exposed to a lot of English during the day (advertising, movies, tourists and business visitors etc.) - Their education system is geared towards teaching them good English
I personally believe that Scandinavians speak English a little better than Dutck...(my personal feeling anyway)
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