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IMHO one of the main reasons London was so popular with the rest of the Europeans, was the language. So I am not surprised to see Amsterdam picking up, as you c
by noncoml 6y ago
IMHO one of the main reasons London was so popular with the rest of the Europeans, was the language. So I am not surprised to see Amsterdam picking up, as you can get away pretty well with just English in Netherlands.
- sgt 6y agoAlso, the availability of fries with mayo must count for something.
- ourcat 6y agoAlso very popular in Belgium.
- isbvhodnvemrwvn 6y agoBut Belgium is not a country.
- raphaelj 6y agoOk
- m00dy 6y agoFor the record: French fries are from Belgium
- TacticalCoder 6y agoOh the hilarity of that one... French people like to joke about belgian people being fries eater: anytime I hear that kind of joke I ask the french person "Do you know what 'frites' are called in most of the world and how they'll be called for posterity?". The irony (as in "ironie du sort" / twist of fate) and the poetic justice of that one is plain delicious: the french have long made fun of the belgian for being fries eater, but the fate of the french is that fries in english are forever going to be known as french fries. It cracks me up to no end : )
- ourcat 6y agoOver here in the UK, "French Fries" came over from America with fast food restaurants in the 80s. Outside of those places, we call them "Chips" - though they tend to be a lot fatter than 'fries'. And then 'Chips' is the American name for what we call 'Crisps'. You say potato, I say potato, etc. ;)
- stephen_g 6y agoChips aren't known as french fries in a lot of the English speaking world - Maccas (McDonalds) here in Australia do call them 'Fries', and you see that word around the place to distinguish from thick-cut chips, but the only place you hear 'french fries' is American TV. Everywhere else here (and I believe it's similar in the UK) it's just chips. One exception is a type of chips (i.e. crisps) that are thin and rectangular shaped and were quite popular when I was in primary school but you don't really see around much, which had the brand name "French Fries".
- jiofih 6y agoFrench fries are an American invention. “Frenched” (thin sliced) fries. Belgian fries are just fries.
- ChuckNorris89 6y agoSame applies to Scandinavia yet Copenhagen or Stockholm are not Amsterdam. The reason Amsterdam took the spot was it has been historically very "tax friendly" to corporations, shall we say, to the point where most foreign conglomerates and even the French Airbus and the Swedish IKEA have set up their holding companies there.
- foepys 6y agoDutch people don't want to hear this but the Netherlands are a tax haven just like Ireland. Luxembourg and Switzerland aren't actually that attractive for tax avoidance anymore.
- float4 6y agoMost Dutch left-wing voters have been acknowledging this for many years now. It's very often been publicly criticised in Dutch media as well. Google "Nederland belastingparadijs" and you'll find a lot of Dutch articles about it.
- ChuckNorris89 6y agoYeah, I guess it's not fair that the Dutch taxpayers and the small/medium sized companies there have to foot the bill for running the country while the trillion+ dollar Apples of the world pay next to nothing.
- tw20212021 6y agoIt's not. Actually the government will bend backwards just to keep the big companies in the country, while hunting down regular tax payers - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_childcare_benefits_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_childcare_benefits_scand... . The tax laws here are ambiguous so that the tax man can judge to his liking whether you are friend or foe.
- t0mas88 6y agoExcept that being a tax haven is a net positive for the Netherlands. Without it Apple wouldn't be in Amsterdam, they would be in Dublin or Luxembourg. And without Apple paying their low percentage on a huge number in Amsterdam, the Dutch would have to pay more tax themselves.
- sebmellen 6y agoYes, an important point. This is one thing the Netherlands is far better at than Germany (Frankfurt). I think it's because Dutch is spoken by rather few people globally, whereas German has ~100m speakers, so the pressure to learn English there isn't as strong.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- FooBarWidget 6y agoI think another reason is that kids tv shows used to be broadcasted with English dubs and Dutch subs. That's how many kids learned English, myself included. Sadly they've moved away from that practice. Everything's Dutch dubbed now.
- actuator 6y agoI would imagine that now English content would be even more easy to obtain as most mediums now support multiple languages flawlessly.
- jakub_g 6y agoDefaults matter.
- kazen44 6y agoAlso, video games tended to not be translated into dutch. Mainly because it is suchs a small language. Me and most of my peers learned most english from playing video games and watching movies and tv shows with subtitels, mostly because spoken dutch was not available.
- bambataa 6y agoHow did that work with games? Did you have to stop and look things up, or did you already have a rough idea and just the exposure increased your fluency? I’ve tried putting my phone/computer into other languages, but within a few days I tend to phase out the changes and I don’t think I learned much.
- thijsvandien 6y agoThat's true for the country as a whole, but in Amsterdam lots of people don't even speak Dutch at all. It was a rather bizarre experience for me to go to a coffee place and order in my native language, only to get frowned upon—English only!
- dep_b 6y agoEspecially given the words for the coffee you order are exactly the same. Koffie <-> coffee And the rest is Italian, French or English anyway "Mag ik een >koffie< en een >croissant<?" - why do I have to repeat myself in English to ask for a >coffee< and a >croissant<?
- ksec 6y ago>but in Amsterdam lots of people don't even speak Dutch at all Why? Am I missing something? I assume they are not Dutch but foreign worker?
- thijsvandien 6y agoNatives are becoming a minority. Newcomers have no reason to learn, because English is the norm.
- izolate 6y agoPerhaps the person you encountered was a recent migrant who hadn't mastered Dutch yet? The poor individual is probably just trying to earn an honest living in your country's increasingly globalized city.
- thijsvandien 6y agoI don't know if they were learning or not. They simply expected English. Nothing against that particular individual; my point is that in Amsterdam, English is the norm.
- addicted 6y agoThat’s an argument for Dublin. Not only do you get English, you also have a simple transition because the ROI has easy access to both the EU and the UK even post Brexit. While English may be an advantage in other areas, I suspect the main reason the financial industry will gravitate towards Amsterdam is its history and therefore presence of skill in financial areas. The Netherlands is after all the birthplace of capitalism, corporations and free markets.
- toyg 6y agoThe real reason is that the Netherlands have their equivalent of British Overseas Territories, and use them in the same way: as tax-havens / money-laundering channels. That's something that only a few selected countries can vaunt, language or no language. Denmark missed a trick with Greenland...
- Denvercoder9 6y agoDo you have a source? I'm aware we (the Netherlands) are a tax haven, but I don't recall any overseas territory being involved in that.
- toyg 6y agoCursory google: https://www.qwealthreport.com/interesting-new-low-tax-havens-in-dutch-caribbean/ https://www.qwealthreport.com/interesting-new-low-tax-havens... http://curacaochronicle.com/politics/curacao-st-maarten-have-dutch-minister-concerned/ http://curacaochronicle.com/politics/curacao-st-maarten-have... It's not a secret, it's just lower-profile than the outrageous British counterparts..
- t0mas88 6y agoThe Dutch islands are in no way involved in the tax tricks. There is no need, all you need is an entity with a PO box in Amsterdam and one in Dublin.
- toyg 6y agoTax offences were not even prosecuted in the Dutch Caribbeans, so of course they didn't exist! Token gestures are being made to change this [1], under pressure from the EU, but do you really think an entire industry will disappear? [1] https://hertoghsadvocaten.nl/en/kennisbank/prosecution-of-tax-offences-on-the-dutch-caribbean-islands/ https://hertoghsadvocaten.nl/en/kennisbank/prosecution-of-ta...