Comment by nephihaha
1 day ago
Dutch announcements in the Netherlands. Fancy that. Almost like it's the national language or something.
1 day ago
Dutch announcements in the Netherlands. Fancy that. Almost like it's the national language or something.
The Netherlands is in the EU. English is the most widely spoken language in the EU, even after the UK left, because it is by far the most common second language. Nearly half of the people in the EU can speak it.
In Northern Europe the percentage is even higher. In the Netherlands there are almost as many people who speak it as there are Dutch speakers.
Taking into account people from other EU countries who are there on business plus tourists there is a good chance that if only one language was to be used for train announcements more people on the train would understand if it was in English then if it was in Dutch.
Ideally announcements should be bilingual, but if there’s only one language, it’s better to inconvenience any number of foreigners than even a single native who doesn’t speak English.
Nobody suggested that dutch announcements should be removed. You can make announcements in two languages.
This is imperial mentality. Dutch is the language of the Netherlands not English and they have the right to use it.
If we follow your line Dutch will go the same way as Welsh or Basque.
> If we follow your line Dutch will go the same way as Welsh or Basque.
No it won't. Mirroring important announcements in two languages is a thing most countries do, and their languages are far from extinct.
And the dutch aren’t very well known for their imperial mentality?
The ongoing non-adoption of Esperanto remains one of the world's many tragedies.
Thanksfully, dutch is reasonnably easy to understand (not to speak) if you know english and the actual context.
Or maybe that is just me having grown to understand dutch and flemish as a cyclocross rider and spectator.
Yes, I'm obviously not mad with them using their own language, and I am studying it since I live there. But it's in the EU, and there is a lot of international tourists on the train, who shouldn't be expected to learn the national language of every country they visit just to navigate it.