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I've lived outside the Netherlands on and off since 1998 and permanently since 2005. I still speak Dutch with family and some friends but not that fluently; my

I've lived outside the Netherlands on and off since 1998 and permanently since 2005. I still speak Dutch with family and some friends but not that fluently; my mother teases me when she catches me making silly mistakes. I rarely write in Dutch and I've noticed that things that I shouldn't have to pause and think about actually have me in doubt when I do. Little spelling issues. Grammatical stuff. Etc. It's still there but I have to stop and think. It would all come back pretty quickly if I'd move back probably. That's what happened the last time I did that, 25 years ago. But even after just a few years away it took me a while to adjust. And even though I live in Germany, it's not my first or second language. More like a distant third. I'm speaking English most of the time. With an accent that sometimes confuses native speakers but I wouldn't be able to pass for a native speaker mostly. I sound more obviously Dutch when I get tired. My grammar gets worse, etc. Accents are hard to lose. I understand German well enough but I'm barely able to form a coherent sentence. I have no hope of getting it even close to the level of my English. And I have no use for a language that makes me sound like a verbally challenged migrant in business situations. The non trivial amount of effort to even get close to my English is not time I have left in this life. So, I'm not super motivated to spend a lot of time on that. I stopped apologizing for / feeling guilty about that many years ago. Anyway, we're heading for universal translators now powered by LLMs. The main challenge is speed; not quality of the translations at this point. Less need than ever to learn a new language. Fun times might be ahead for people that are a bit adventurous. No more need to ask "do you speak English?".

Aachen 2y ago
What kind of mistakes do you make? I'm finding that ei/ij is something I now need to look up regularly. Vocabulary sometimes takes me a second to remember (new words, that I learned after moving away, probably as much as old words), or whether an expression/saying is Dutch or German or English or an Internet reference, but nothing is a hindrance to fluency as much as the dumb ei/ij thing—that we could simply have abolished centuries ago instead of learning it by heart for generations—since I need to really pause and do an external lookup instead of thinking/umming for 500ms For others who read this: ei/in is like whether to write cocoa with a c or a k, if both letters were equally common (it's a 50/50 split with no logic to it) and sometimes the other variant has a completely different meaning
- jillesvangurp 2y ago
  Stuff like that indeed requires more thinking than it used to.
devilbunny 2y ago
Are you speaking English primarily with Commonwealth speakers? Because while it isn’t the same, a Dutch accent is surprisingly close to a lot of American accents. I have never encountered difficulty understanding native Dutch speakers who have good English (which is most of you). Yes, it’s obviously not an American accent, but compared to Scots? Way easier to understand. If it weren’t for the fact that I am a huge, huge fan of Trainspotting I would have been utterly lost in Edinburgh, let alone Glasgow. My wife could barely understand anything said by about 80% of the Scots and I would have to repeat sentences for her. Especially in noisy situations like crowded restaurants.
- jillesvangurp 2y ago
  > Are you speaking English primarily with Commonwealth speakers? A mix of mostly expats from all over the world. And I have some Irish friends and colleagues. And lots of Germans. But it helps that I get exposed to a lot of English/US media, youtube, etc.
  - devilbunny 2y ago
    Right, but if the listeners are not American or Canadian then they may find your accent challenging. Americans and Canadians spell things differently but we largely speak the same language. And we would not find your accent a challenge. Culturally, I am closer in some ways to Australians, but linguistically I have more in common with English speakers from Quebec than Aussies.

Aachen 2y ago

What kind of mistakes do you make? I'm finding that ei/ij is something I now need to look up regularly. Vocabulary sometimes takes me a second to remember (new words, that I learned after moving away, probably as much as old words), or whether an expression/saying is Dutch or German or English or an Internet reference, but nothing is a hindrance to fluency as much as the dumb ei/ij thing—that we could simply have abolished centuries ago instead of learning it by heart for generations—since I need to really pause and do an external lookup instead of thinking/umming for 500ms For others who read this: ei/in is like whether to write cocoa with a c or a k, if both letters were equally common (it's a 50/50 split with no logic to it) and sometimes the other variant has a completely different meaning

jillesvangurp 2y ago
Stuff like that indeed requires more thinking than it used to.

devilbunny 2y ago

Are you speaking English primarily with Commonwealth speakers? Because while it isn’t the same, a Dutch accent is surprisingly close to a lot of American accents. I have never encountered difficulty understanding native Dutch speakers who have good English (which is most of you). Yes, it’s obviously not an American accent, but compared to Scots? Way easier to understand. If it weren’t for the fact that I am a huge, huge fan of Trainspotting I would have been utterly lost in Edinburgh, let alone Glasgow. My wife could barely understand anything said by about 80% of the Scots and I would have to repeat sentences for her. Especially in noisy situations like crowded restaurants.

jillesvangurp 2y ago
> Are you speaking English primarily with Commonwealth speakers? A mix of mostly expats from all over the world. And I have some Irish friends and colleagues. And lots of Germans. But it helps that I get exposed to a lot of English/US media, youtube, etc.
- devilbunny 2y ago
  Right, but if the listeners are not American or Canadian then they may find your accent challenging. Americans and Canadians spell things differently but we largely speak the same language. And we would not find your accent a challenge. Culturally, I am closer in some ways to Australians, but linguistically I have more in common with English speakers from Quebec than Aussies.