A coworker of mine suggested that Dutch is the easiest language to learn for native English speakers, so I’ve been learning it on the side for the past few months.
Just the way sentences are constructed, the vocabulary, the fine nuances etc. Not to mention the pronunciation (though that’s where I’m personally doing the least bad).
Furthermore, there is a widely known issue with immigrants to the country never really learning the language due to a plethora of factors from the fact most Dutch people speak great English (so you don’t get practice), English being used as internal company language, and all the “infrastructure” stuff like taxes, administration etc being translated.
Yes and no, anyone can come make their life here (way easier to be successful here than in France for sure) but you do struggle to make Dutch friends as an adult. Still it’s hard for me to picture a country that would be better to live in except maybe Nordics or Switzerland. What is missing is anything more “raw”, great nature, great food, warm personalities etc are missing. That can be compensated somewhat by traveling often but I do think we’ll move again someday to a place with more of that kind of things (just not France, NEVER! :D)
Engels zit ook vol met Oud Nederlandse woorden.
A coworker of mine suggested that Dutch is the easiest language to learn for native English speakers, so I’ve been learning it on the side for the past few months.
So is it easier ? I admit seeing dutch’s sentence is kinda overwhelming. I lend toward spanish or italiano 😅
It’s not really, it’s a fucked up language.
Why ?
Just the way sentences are constructed, the vocabulary, the fine nuances etc. Not to mention the pronunciation (though that’s where I’m personally doing the least bad).
Furthermore, there is a widely known issue with immigrants to the country never really learning the language due to a plethora of factors from the fact most Dutch people speak great English (so you don’t get practice), English being used as internal company language, and all the “infrastructure” stuff like taxes, administration etc being translated.
And how is immigrants integrations ? Do they find a pace in their society ?
Yes and no, anyone can come make their life here (way easier to be successful here than in France for sure) but you do struggle to make Dutch friends as an adult. Still it’s hard for me to picture a country that would be better to live in except maybe Nordics or Switzerland. What is missing is anything more “raw”, great nature, great food, warm personalities etc are missing. That can be compensated somewhat by traveling often but I do think we’ll move again someday to a place with more of that kind of things (just not France, NEVER! :D)
Weather comes to mind too 😄
So the message should be : learn old french and old Dutch > visit the world ☺️