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English is not their native language. Acceptable use patterns may be different in the Netherlands.

• gruseom 18y ago
  Oh come on. The "use pattern" here is obvious, and somehow I doubt there's a linguistics thesis coming on the great Holland - Southern California migration. Edit: besides, the Dutch (especially younger ones) tend to speak English at practically native speaker level. The cited example may even be an example of that: if you can sound dumb in the same way that a native speaker would, your English is obviously very good :)
  • jcl 18y ago
    The cited example shows a neuroscientist talking like an American teenager. As this is probably not intentional, the most likely explanation is a cultural disconnect. If anything, it's a counterexample of extreme fluency, since a native speaker in her position wouldn't intentionally say that.
    • jd 18y ago
      It's just a slip of the tongue. When you pick up idiom from the television and exchange students it's easy to say something that's like totally retarded. She was probably just nervous and didn't know what to say. So she said the first thing that came to mind...
  • jeroen 18y ago
    the Dutch (especially younger ones) tend to speak English at practically native speaker level. Don't overestimate us. Dutch people tend to be able to communicate in more languages than their own and be prepared to do so when encountering foreigners, but fluency in English is not widespread.