Comments on: Breaking English

By: Emily M.

Emily M. — Sat, 29 Sep 2007 00:39:24 +0000

Hello, I came across your blog posting after searching for teach english and your post on Breaking English makes an interesting read. Thanks for sharing. I will search online more next Friday when I have the day off.

By: Emily M.

Emily M. — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 04:23:00 +0000

Greetings from an English teacher! I came across your blog posting after searching for teach english and your post on Breaking English makes an interesting read. Thanks for sharing. I will search online more next Monday when I have the day off.

By: dollev

dollev — Tue, 05 Dec 2006 20:00:09 +0000

I’m not sure if it is true that the majority of the Dutch “overestimate their English skills”. On the contrary, we like to make fun of our “steenkolen Engels”.

Speaking for myself, i am aware that my knowledge of the
English language is not perfect, and especially my speech could use a lot of improvement. However, that does not keep me from writing and conversing in English and feeling comfortably about it. If that ticks anybody off, because he/she is suspecting me of believing that my English is flawless, so be it.

Although i think that my English teacher did an excellent job, maybe my English skills would have fared better with a teacher from the British isles. That teacher should also be able to speak Dutch fluently in order to teach her/his Dutch students. I find it hard to believe that there are enough people with that specific set of linguistic skills out there.

English is developing as a second language in the Netherlands and it has a life of its own. I don’t know how many generations it will take, but in the end the Dutch will fluently speak a form of English that is mangled and deformed in its own unique way. Another fine addition to all the other English dialects that can be found around the world today.

By: M

Wed, 15 Nov 2006 15:21:00 +0000

I’ve lurked on your site awhile and this post made me think of the volunteering I’ve started to do at a Dutch school in Amsterdam. I’m American, and every other week I’ll go to the school to just converse in English with a group of 4 kids. I’ve just had one session so far, but I was already quite amazed at their level of English considering they’re only 10-11 and don’t take formal English classes at school. During my time there this week I taught them various names of animals as we went through a book on Dutch wildlife. But I like to think that I’m helping to save these four kids at least from poor English. =)

By: Jasper Sprengers

Jasper Sprengers — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 06:53:06 +0000

The sound patterns in one’s native language and the way these are phonetically distinctive will determine how difficult it is to understand and pronounce a foreign language tolerably. It explains why the Italians have trouble with the richer English vowel system and why the Dutch and Germans cannot distinguish ‘bed’ and ‘bet’. Don’t worry next time a Japanese speaker confuses ‘he’ and ’she’. These two consonants simply do not distinguish word meaning in their language. It’s nothing cultural

By: Asnanne

Asnanne — Mon, 13 Nov 2006 17:24:06 +0000

Erg leuk om te lezen wat voor idiote fouten wij Nederlanders maken. Geniale site…

Good point Michael!
I’m 16 and i’m learing english at school.
I am now realizing how difficult english is. (verbs and stuff)
And i’m wondering why anyone wants to learn Dutch… It must be hard..

Deze week B-)

By: Natashka

Natashka — Mon, 13 Nov 2006 09:37:49 +0000

The big difference is that any non native Dutch speaker is very aware of their Dutch talents or lack thereof, and I hear much more underestimating that overestimating going on.

I finally stopped saying “dit week” this year

By: Michael

Michael — Mon, 13 Nov 2006 00:10:30 +0000

I’m willing to bet that the average native Dutch speaking person’s English is better than the average native English speaking person’s Dutch, though…

By: Larry

Larry — Fri, 10 Nov 2006 20:47:32 +0000

In my experience, North Americans are more likely than other speakers of English to compliment the English skills of any non-native speaker, so the Dutch must be doing some really terrible stuff.

The Dutch underestimate their mistakes in English because they overestimate their English skills (and are complimented by English speakers, which just reinforces their perception). They’re intellectually lazy and complacent about the difficult of English.

End of massive generalization.