Your comments

Chantal van Genderen - London
Hi All, This is just a message to Alcuin r anyone else who knows Surinames people in London:-) I am from Surinam and have been livng in the UK for 2 years now and I am still explaining to people that Surinam is not situated in Africa and that "yes" they speak Dutch there and that it bordes Brazil to the South ( to make it more "appealing or visual). Cheers, Chantal van Genderen

John, London
Julian Lewis is quite right! Don't get put off by people who reply to you in English. As your Dutch gets better you will get fewer and fewer replies in English. I just came back from a trip to Flanders and NO-ONE answered me in English! Hurrah!

Justin Lewis Rotterdam
I am an English man who moved to Holland 14 years ago to race my bicycle and work. I was then 31 and spoke no Dutch. I recognise all the comments above and particularly concurr with the person who says that Flemish Dutch sounds nicer. I was repeatedly told by Dutch friends that I would never be able to learn the language and there would be little point anyway: they all speak English. Unfortunately I am very obstinate and this was the best motivation I ever had. I now speak good Dutch, teach in a Dutch school (economics in Dutch) and have found that learning a language properly has really enriched my life. I have become a bit of a sad purist and notice that my English suffers interference from Dutch. The Dutch peoples' strong point (their command of English) is also a weak point: foreigners who speak English are not forced to learn the language if they live here and that slows the integration process. One only gets certain insights into a culture through its language: I urge any expat anywhere to learn the language of the country they are in.

Tim, Northern Ireland
I have to second Peter and "third" Nick P! :) Irritatingly, Dutch speakers in the Netherlands and Flanders will often switch to English without asking when they realise that you are a foreigner. You just need to keep asking them politely to speak Dutch until they get the message. If they were in Britain they would expect to be allowed to practice their English, so it only seems fair that others be allowed to practice Dutch in the Netherlands or Flanders. On the other hand, most people there react very positively to your efforts at speaking Dutch, which is great. Fortunately in my experience there are many more of these than those who switch to English.

Tim D - Dresden, Germany
I agree with Viv Edwards. When I was in Flanders, the Flemish referred to their language as "Nederlands" and NOT "Vlaams". The only people I heard talking about Flemish were French-speaking Belgians who couldn't speak "Nederlands" but said they couldn't speak "flamande" Nick P: you have my sympathy! I am an English Native Speaker who speaks Dutch. Such people who try to insist on speaking English to me in a non-English speaking country really irritate me too. I find it very good when people worldwide are learning English, sometimes to a very high standard. However one undesirable side-effect is that some believe that they have the right to speak English in countries where English is not the official language. Of course they have NO RIGHT to insist on English or any foreign language anymore than someone in England would have to insist on Dutch. If their English is better than your Dutch, that is irrelevant. People should respect the customs of the country they are in, which means speaking Dutch in the Netherlands. If they don't like your Dutch, they damn well have to put up with it. They would feel entitled to speak English in England and resent anyone trying to deprive them of this right, even if that person spoke Dutch better than they spoke English. So Dutch-speakers should do others the same courtesy that they themselves would expect. I don't want to suggest that this is a specifically Dutch problem, there are annoying people like this in every country, but a particularly high number in the Netherlands due to the high general standard of English. I find that there is only one way to deal with those who switch to English without being asked (which is rude), namely to nip all attempts to speak English in the bud. Reply to any English with "In het Nederlands, alstubleeft" until they get the message. Never give an inch!

Peter, currently in Leuven
I have to second Nick P. As an English-speaker, it can be very hard to get practice in Dutch as most people swiftly realise that you are not a native-speaker and switch to English. This demonstrates their education so they are not keen on speaking Dutch to foreigners. This can be very frustrating. In addition, I learnt Hollands Dutch then went to Brabant - a different 'r', a different 'g', more Frenchified vocabulary and pronunciation. It was a struggle. Even now, though I can follow news broadcasts and radio, I struggle to follow 'straattaal'.

Bill , Netherlands
I've lived in Holland for almost seventeen years and have more or less mastered the language. Still plenty of room for improvement of course, I guess with a language there always is. In response to Derek, the Dutch do indeed regularly review their spelling, which is pretty irritating. Just when everyone has learned the rules, a new 'Green Book' is published with the new spelling. Inevitably, the book also contains errors, which the press (who boycott the new spelling anyway) gleefully report. There is an annual National Dictation which is televised and although it's based on the Dutch spelling, and is broadcast in the Netherlands, it's usually a Belgian who scores best - perhaps because assorted French words, which have been adopted by the Dutch are thrown in. Still, relatively large number of errors appear in even the most educated participants' texts, which are generally down to the slight and insignificant changes to obscure words which the "taalunie" have made. For example, chicken-run might be changed to chickens-run, because, logically you keep more than one chicken in one. Honest, they're quite serious about it. No wonder the term double-Dutch came into being.

Nick P- Dorset
I lived for a while in Amsterdam years ago, and tried to learn Dutch. What made it difficult was that nearly everyone you met was fluent in English, and would insist on speaking English to you. This went as far as people making it clear that they didn't want you to try to speak their language, to the point of hostilty if you tried- i.e. pretending not to understand you, laughing if you got it wrong, refusing to tell you how to say things etc. They had a real attitude about it I'm sorry to say. I thought it was just me, but I had a friend who was pure blooded Dutch, spoke it fluently, but being brought up in England had an accent when he did. He got the same reaction as me, although he said it was only around Amsterdam, and the West of the country that this happened to him. I can still shop in Dutch and Flemish however, (so there!). Nick P

Rian from London
I grew up in the Netherlands, but left in 2003 to live first in Austria and then in England. It's been 2,5 years since I spoke Dutch all day every day and already I am getting rusty. My family laugh at me for sounding English. Even my Austrian friends say my German sounds English! I started learning English when I was 11 and never struggled. A lot of words are similar actually. I miss speaking Dutch, but haven't got Dutch friends in England, so mostly I write Dutch in emails to my friends at home. I love Flemish, it just sounds friendlier :-)

bel desmidt
i'm from belgium, the east of flanders. the biggest difference between flemmish and the dutch from the netherlands, is that our pronounciation has more a french accent, and our vocabulary is also more french. and the people from the netherlands talk more with an english accent: an example, within a word, they do not pronounce the R, like it was origally, and still in flanders.

Freya, Nottingham
Dutch is a beautiful language to hear and to speak (although not necessarily to write!), and I wish more Brits would learn it. I lived in Amsterdam for 5 years and it is a wonderfully expressive and vibrant language. Sadly, because the Dutch speak English so well, no-one ever bothers to learn Dutch! I am British, but I speak Dutch to my British partner when we're on our mobiles, so no-one can understand us! It is quite difficult to get the very different vowel and consonant sounds right (like the ch/g sounds, which is a bit like clearing phlegm from your throat), but it's a fab language!

David Smith (formally Perthshire) currently Phoeni
Many years ago, I was sitting in a bar in Edinburgh with a couple of friends from Aberdeen, when they reverted to their local dialect. I could understand very little of this talk, but a fourth person at the bar joined in the conversation and this continued for several minutes before it was discovered that he was talking his native language - Dutch.

Derek Kyle ( formerley Edinburgh) currently Nederl
Having moved her in 1997 with my Dutch wife , it surprisilgly only took me 1 year to learn the basics of the language. My wife often compliments me on my use of the language even though i have an "accent". Having a Scottish accent helped my confidence R and G are the two tricky ones and i already had the R so it was not so much of a struggle. I think Dutch must be constantly reviewed as the spelling is somthing that is often changed.I live near the belgian border and think that the vlammingen ( Flemmish) sound like frenchmen speaking dutch.