Going Dutch

Even though we are living in Germany[1], I am employed by a Dutch organisation, FOM. For foreigners coming into the Netherlands, they invite you to a Dutch language and customs course. This is to help you assimilate and acclimatise and so even though I spend very little time in the Netherlands I was obliged to attend. I have very little reason to learn the Dutch language, even though I was quite interested to. (I'm finding out that you can't speak too many languages.). There's little reason, since, not only do I spend very little time in that country, but my Dutch colleagues (and Dutch people in general) all speak excellent English.

It was originally a five day course with a weekend after the second day. However a Dutch train strike on the Friday meant there was no course for that day. So perhaps that was a reasonable introduction to some Dutch customs. I took the trains from our village to Utrecht with a total travel time of about 3.5 hours on three different trains. The train from Köln (Cologne) to Utrecht (known as the ICE - International City Express) is quite nice, travelling around 130 km/h, with airline-type seats which have a power point and head phone jack (you provide the head phones) with audio programs available.

I enjoyed the course -- there is a fair bit of overlap between German and Dutch and with my German vocabulary getting much bigger this made it easier -- though I do seem to be coming home with a sore throat from trying to pronounce some of the sounds. The course was taught in English and, even though everyone spoke it (other participants were Bulgarian, Ukrainian, French, Italian, Pakistani and Turkish), I was the only one who spoke only one language. Sometimes I really feel that here mono-lingual is mono-brow. *chest thump* "Ug. Me Fenton. Me speak English."


[1] Technically, I live in the Netherlands. That is, I have an official address there and Gaynor and the children official reside in Germany. Hopefully soon my Dutch residency permit will be approved and I can then officially move to Germany. So at the moment, I just holiday in Germany a lot. :)