Talking to the Natives

People in the Philippines often get surprised when I tell them that English is not spoken widely in the Netherlands. This is different from what we have in the Philippines, where despite our having our own languages, we use English in school, at work, in the newspapers, even when writing e-mails to each other.

Anyway, when I first arrived in 1983, I had to learn the Dutch language in one year. My permit to stay was dependent on my passing a Dutch language proficiency test within a year. So, I really did not have a choice but to learn the language. And not only learn it, I had to learn it to university level. That was quite a task.

So, my wife and I set out to really learn the language. We took a subscription to the Volkskrant, a daily newspaper said to be aimed at those who are relatively highly educated. We regularly watched Dutch TV, especially the news. The nice thing about the Netherlands is that they don't dub English-language movies, but put subtitles. So, we could hear the English original text while reading the Dutch translation. This was quite helpful.
And we took Dutch lessons at the university; where students would also help tutor us.

It was good that we were based in Tilburg, especially at this time. Very few people spoke English then, so when people noticed we were not good in speaking Dutch, they spoke slowly.. in Dutch.
It was not like what would happen in Amsterdam or Utrecht... there the people would shift to English, when they notice that you were a foreigner. So, we were forced to talk to people in Dutch; which is great, when you have to learn a language in a year.

To make the long story short, I passed the language exam, and was thus qualified to enroll in the university here. (I will go more into that in another post.)

A few years later, our first child, Ligaya, went to school. She started to play with other children after school, either at our house, or in the houses of her friends. The funny thing was that when we would converse with her playmates' parents, they would sometimes suddenly shift to the local dialect, and all of a sudden we could not understand what they were talking about. Yes, Tilburg has its own dialect, which is different from the standard Dutch language in some words and expressions, but the main difference is really the pronunciation. When people really feel at home with us, they shift unintentionally to the dialect. We had not experienced this earlier - I suppose that this was because we used to speak to people in formal or semi-formal situations, where they make sure that they speak in standard Dutch.

As our children grew up (we have two daughters: Ligaya, and Elena) we did our best to ensure that they learned Dutch well. We brought them (when they were small) every week to the library, to borrow books; we read stories to them every night, etc. We are proud to say that their Dutch language proficiency is excellent. When they were in high school, we would often ask their help when we encounter problems with formulating sentences in Dutch.

Now, after 24 years here in the Netherlands, I describe my Dutch language proficiency as "good". I can express myself orally, and in written form. However, people will notice that I have an accent. Of course, I have an accent; and I am not really trying to get rid of it too much. (only when it hinders understanding) After all, if people understand me; they should appreciate the fact that I took all the trouble to learn their language. It takes so much less effort on their part to bear with my accent.