Damned if you do, damned it you don’t
Most people in the Netherlands have heard this many times before at university or in the workplace, the story of a foreigner trying to learn Dutch but constantly being spoken to in English (Dunglish). And then, behind their backs, some of those same people bitching that foreigners don’t want to learn Dutch, usually meant to be a badly veiled racist comment aimed at certain groups of foreigners.
Two major assumptions that cause problems:
1. That anything that looks like English or Dunglish makes you more international. Either you are international or you’re not in any language.
2. That all foreigners are so stupid they really believe this minority complex marketing. People chose a university for its reputation, not its identity crisis.
‘Tilburg University’ my ass. English official language of Universiteit Tilburg (article in Dutch). Amusingly enough, this goes against Dutch law.
September 9th, 2006 at 3:30 pm
Link should be English official language of Universiteit Tilburg.
September 11th, 2006 at 9:23 am
Hi Natasha,
Your link doesn’t work…
Regards,
Angela
September 11th, 2006 at 9:28 am
Now it does!
September 21st, 2006 at 9:33 am
Please allow me to correct YOU: “usually meant to be a badly veiled racist comment” should really be “thinly veiled”. You cannot “badly veil” something in English. Not even in American English, actually.
September 27th, 2006 at 11:18 am
You are absolutely right. Something that it badly veiled sounds like a thinly veiled comment about someone who wears a veil 🙂