Ask the dutchman

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why is your country so awesome? why am i so happy when i go there, even when i'm not stoned? why is Amsterdam so beautiful? why is the Dutch government and people able to take such mature, thoughtful stances on soft drugs and prostitutions? is it the education system? why do Dutch people speak such beautiful English?
 
Have you ever owned a pair of clogs?

Why are all the dutch folk so lovely? :)
 
Irvine511 said:
why is your country so awesome? why am i so happy when i go there, even when i'm not stoned? why is Amsterdam so beautiful? why is the Dutch government and people able to take such mature, thoughtful stances on soft drugs and prostitutions? is it the education system? why do Dutch people speak such beautiful English?
Click to expand...

Let's see...
Let's start with the mature stances on sofr drugs and education. We seem to be searching for solutions that give the least trouble. This may be a very mature stance but it's on the other hand a 'soft' stance. What we will do is treat drug addicts more as victims or patients than as criminals.
Amsterdam is beautiful because city planning was invented after Amsterdam was built. But seriously, the canals were the lifelines of the city, so they got more and more of them.
You're so happy in Amsterdam when you're not stoned because you're about to be stoned. :wink:
Beautiful english? You mean speak english with a terrible accent? We do get a lot of english. Starts in primary school. And we only use subtitles for films. It gives you more of a feel for the language as a lot of movies are in english. We speak a fair bit of french and german too. Goes with being occupied a lot I guess.
:wink:
 
Lara Mullen said:
Have you ever owned a pair of clogs?

Why are all the dutch folk so lovely? :)
Click to expand...

I have owned a pair of clogs when I was a kid. Got rid of 'em thankfully :)
Why are we all so lovely? Dunno, guess it's nature :wink:
 
Why do the Dutch call themselves Dutch?


Why not Hollanders?


I was taught about the Benelux Nations in school.

Is there any official Federation?
 
Why do so many people seem to like bikes in the Netherlands?
Do you grow tulips?
Have you been to Amsterdam? Will I be able to get along in Amsterdam without any knowledge of Dutch except ja and testje. Why can you all speak such good english? Can you speak any other languages? Do you know any good hotels in Amsterdam that are cheap? If you have been to Amsterdam, what places do you recommend seeing that they might not tell tourists about? Is the Schipol airport really that huge? (I read in a book that it is)
Am I asking too many questions?
 
deep said:
Why do the Dutch call themselves Dutch?


Why not Hollanders?


I was taught about the Benelux Nations in school.

Is there any official Federation?
Click to expand...

We do call ourselves hollanders. Or nederlanders to be more exact. It's the english world that calls us dutch. Dutch probably has to do with the word 'duits' which means german. The founder of the state was a...well...german.
 
deep said:
Why do the Dutch call themselves Dutch?


Why not Hollanders?


I was taught about the Benelux Nations in school.

Is there any official Federation?
Click to expand...

It comes from "dietsch", the Middle Dutch version of the word 'duits' - then "Nederdietsch". I learned that in my first week, of the first term, of my first year. See, my degree wasn't completely useless!:wink:
 
Last edited:
Lara Mullen said:
Why do so many people seem to like bikes in the Netherlands?
Do you grow tulips?
Have you been to Amsterdam? Will I be able to get along in Amsterdam without any knowledge of Dutch except ja and testje. Why can you all speak such good english? Can you speak any other languages? Do you know any good hotels in Amsterdam that are cheap? If you have been to Amsterdam, what places do you recommend seeing that they might not tell tourists about? Is the Schipol airport really that huge? (I read in a book that it is)
Am I asking too many questions?
Click to expand...

On the subject of bikes: in a city it's the fastest and easiest way to get around. Our larger cities are pretty old, and therefor not very sensibly planned. So if everybody would travel by car the cities would be congested totally. Bikes are easy, you can always park in front of the building you have to get to, and are cheap (which always is a big factor in dutch reasoning). :wink:
I have been to Amsterdam, quite recently. I liked the Vondelpark and the old houses next to it. You'll do fine in Amsterdam talking english. Cheap hotels? hmm...I usually go for luxury, but I'll look around for a bit. I'll get back on that if you want me to.
Funny, I never thought of Schiphol airport as huge until I was on an Air Canada flight and the pilot explained it has 5 runways, while for instance Frankfurt and London only have two. As far as passengers go, I don't think it's that huge however.
Oh, I can speak german pretty well and can manage some french and started studying spanish recently.
 
sallycinnamon78 said:


It comes from "dietsch", the Middle Dutch version of the word 'duits' - then "Nederdietsch". I learned that in my first week, of the first term, of my first year. See, my degree wasn't completely useless!:wink:
Click to expand...

:shocked: WOW! That's some study you've had. I didn't even know that (nor do I think many dutch do)
 
s_tielemans said:


On the subject of bikes: in a city it's the fastest and easiest way to get around. Our larger cities are pretty old, and therefor not very sensibly planned. So if everybody would travel by car the cities would be congested totally. Bikes are easy, you can always park in front of the building you have to get to, and are cheap (which always is a big factor in dutch reasoning). :wink:
I have been to Amsterdam, quite recently. I liked the Vondelpark and the old houses next to it. You'll do fine in Amsterdam talking english. Cheap hotels? hmm...I usually go for luxury, but I'll look around for a bit. I'll get back on that if you want me to.
Funny, I never thought of Schiphol airport as huge until I was on an Air Canada flight and the pilot explained it has 5 runways, while for instance Frankfurt and London only have two. As far as passengers go, I don't think it's that huge however.
Oh, I can speak german pretty well and can manage some french and started studying spanish recently.
Click to expand...

If you could point me in the way of a good website to check hotels that would be cool. I really need to book soemthing as I already booked my flights in Jan. We don't mind about luxury, we're students :lol:

I study Spanish and French at uni. :up:
I can't speak Dutch. I might try to know somg phrases before I go away, though.
 
LivLuvAndBootlegMusic said:
Can you believe that I'd bet money I'm more "Dutch" than you, and I've never been to Holland?
Click to expand...

Your name is Dutch? Otherwise I can't imagine...
 
Lara Mullen said:


If you could point me in the way of a good website to check hotels that would be cool. I really need to book soemthing as I already booked my flights in Jan. We don't mind about luxury, we're students :lol:

I study Spanish and French at uni. :up:
I can't speak Dutch. I might try to know somg phrases before I go away, though.
Click to expand...

You could try these:
http://www.bbholland.com/
http://www.bedandbreakfast.nl/
http://www.stayokay.com

Not sure they're all in english though!
 
Well, I'm off to bed (damned time difference!) I'll check in tomorrow. Lara, hope the sites work out. See ya in the morning!
 
s_tielemans said:


So when did you go to the USA?
Click to expand...

My great grandparents, but we live in an area that is more homogenously Dutch than most places in Holland, so we've remained pure Dutch. We even have our own dialect of Yankee Dutch!
 
sallycinnamon78 said:


It comes from "dietsch", the Middle Dutch version of the word 'duits' - then "Nederdietsch". I learned that in my first week, of the first term, of my first year. See, my degree wasn't completely useless!:wink:
Click to expand...

Nederlands (Dutch) and German (Deutsch) are closely related, as you probably know. For a long time, the language spoken in the German/Lowlands region was called (by the people who lived there) as Diets, Duits, Deutsch, Duutsch, all dialectal variations of the same word.
Diets, Duits, Deutsch, Duuts, and (by borrowing into English) Dutch all have the meaning '(the language) of the people'. 'Diet' in Middle Dutch, for example, had as its meaning simply 'people'.

At this time (Middle Ages) there was no such thing as The Netherlands or Germany and the entire germanic region of North West Europe was known as Dutch.
When The Netherlands became independent from Spain (16th/17th century) Nederduits (Low Dutch) became more or less the official language of The Netherlands since this was the dialect spoken in the dominant province of The Netherlands: Holland.
For quite some time after that, the Dutch language was called Nederdiets/Nederduits by the Dutch themselves, where Hochdeutsch/Hoogduits (High Dutch) was/is spoken by the German nation(s).
After a while this changed and nowadays we call our language Nederlands (Netherlandic).

Just in case you wanted to know :wink:
 
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