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So true. And since you've gone the intellectual route, I'll choose the emotional one: I propose the Dutch don't like English because their language is also bas

So true. And since you've gone the intellectual route, I'll choose the emotional one: I propose the Dutch don't like English because their language is also bastardization of different languages. As a defensive mechanism, they're picking on English to distract everyone from their soddy language. :) Sure, the writer's English, but he had to pander to the locals.

tosseraccount 11y ago
Most similar language to English, except for Frisian, is Dutch. Here's an admittedly imperfect graph showing this : https://alternativetransport.files.wordpress.com/2015/05/lexical-distance-among-the-languages-of-europe-2-1-mid-size.png https://alternativetransport.files.wordpress.com/2015/05/lex... . French, Spanish, Italian , Portugese and Romanians can often understand each other to a limited degree as all are modern mutations from Latin. English speakers might be a little surprised that,if they listen very carefully, can understand a just a little Dutch. The Dutch not liking English is probably just a little neighborhood rivalry. As I understand it, they don't like the Germans for some more recent transgressions.
- singold 11y ago
  I have some English knowledge as a non native speaker, and dutch was like Chinese for me, until some said something similar to this. Not that I can speak or write anything but sometimes some isolated words make sense for me because of the English similarity
  - schoen 11y ago
    There are some somewhat systematic vowel correspondences -- easier for Dutch → German than for Dutch → English but maybe still interesting to know about. For example, as an English speaker who had studied German, written Dutch made a lot more sense for me when I learned that Dutch ui corresponds to German au (for example huis/Haus (Eng. house), uitgang/Ausgang (Eng. *outgoing)). Although so does ouw (bouw/Bau, bouwen/bauen, vrouw/Frau).
- cmurf 11y ago
  I speak English, and some German. I find Nederlands to be totally confusing. Maybe my Dutch lightbulb just hasn't turned on yet.
- fennecfoxen 11y ago
  > English speakers might be a little surprised that,if they listen very carefully, can understand a just a little Dutch. Allow me to suggest some simple, easy-to-digest sample audio. Try listening to one of these five times. :P https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yOueN0sV2SY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yOueN0sV2SY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NkRvPFK5Ss4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NkRvPFK5Ss4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQPiGqzZRGA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQPiGqzZRGA
- gjm11 11y ago
  I am a native anglophone and know a bit of German, but have never learned any Dutch. I find Dutch very strange because looking at it or listening to it it feels as if I ought to understand it, but in fact (usually) I mostly don't. I guess what triggers the ought-to-understand feeling is that things like letter/n-gram frequencies, word lengths, etc., match English fairly well. A bit like looking at the output of a Markov chain text generator or an RNN trained on English. (Spanish is, for me, more or less the opposite. Given a page of Spanish text I can generally decode it pretty well, albeit slowly, on the basis of other languages I know -- English native, French fairly well, schoolboy Latin -- but it doesn't trigger that feeling of recognition in the way Dutch does.)
raarts 11y ago
I did not get from TFA that the Dutch don't like English. Also I don't think that's true at all (source: I'm Dutch). According to an older HN submission (can't find it right now) the netherlands is, with the exception of the UK, the country with the highest percentage of people speaking English (96%), and I don't know of anyone not liking it.
- purpled_haze 11y ago
  Good to know it is just this organization having the awful ideas. ;) Btw- I've worked with some great Dutch developers and am in awe of all of the talent there from the things I've seen over the years. The language isn't bad either. :) Just saying it's a mutt language like English, but mutts are good things. Diversity is a strength, not a weakness.
beat 11y ago
A friend of mine grew up in a family scattered across Holland, England, France, and Germany, with a grandmother matriarch in Holland. He was raised mostly in England, so English was his first language. The rule of his grandmother's house was that you could use words from Dutch, English, German, or French, but you had to use Dutch grammar. It was from him that I learned the formula "Dutch is just German with a fire sale on vowels."
fennecfoxen 11y ago
> I propose the Dutch don't like English because their language is also bastardization of different languages. You're calling out Dutch as a bastard? Seems a little backwards, seeing how it's basically English without the French-ification from the Normans. If anyone bastardized the Germanic language group, it was English.
- gkya 11y ago
  Yes, one needs to know four languages in order to be able to coin a word in English.
- Turing_Machine 11y ago
  " Seems a little backwards, seeing how it's basically English without the French-ification from the Normans." Well, except for the Flemish dialect of Dutch. That has quite a lot of French in it.

tosseraccount 11y ago

Most similar language to English, except for Frisian, is Dutch. Here's an admittedly imperfect graph showing this : https://alternativetransport.files.wordpress.com/2015/05/lexical-distance-among-the-languages-of-europe-2-1-mid-size.png https://alternativetransport.files.wordpress.com/2015/05/lex... . French, Spanish, Italian , Portugese and Romanians can often understand each other to a limited degree as all are modern mutations from Latin. English speakers might be a little surprised that,if they listen very carefully, can understand a just a little Dutch. The Dutch not liking English is probably just a little neighborhood rivalry. As I understand it, they don't like the Germans for some more recent transgressions.

singold 11y ago
I have some English knowledge as a non native speaker, and dutch was like Chinese for me, until some said something similar to this. Not that I can speak or write anything but sometimes some isolated words make sense for me because of the English similarity
- schoen 11y ago
  There are some somewhat systematic vowel correspondences -- easier for Dutch → German than for Dutch → English but maybe still interesting to know about. For example, as an English speaker who had studied German, written Dutch made a lot more sense for me when I learned that Dutch ui corresponds to German au (for example huis/Haus (Eng. house), uitgang/Ausgang (Eng. *outgoing)). Although so does ouw (bouw/Bau, bouwen/bauen, vrouw/Frau).
cmurf 11y ago
I speak English, and some German. I find Nederlands to be totally confusing. Maybe my Dutch lightbulb just hasn't turned on yet.
fennecfoxen 11y ago
> English speakers might be a little surprised that,if they listen very carefully, can understand a just a little Dutch. Allow me to suggest some simple, easy-to-digest sample audio. Try listening to one of these five times. :P https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yOueN0sV2SY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yOueN0sV2SY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NkRvPFK5Ss4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NkRvPFK5Ss4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQPiGqzZRGA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQPiGqzZRGA
gjm11 11y ago
I am a native anglophone and know a bit of German, but have never learned any Dutch. I find Dutch very strange because looking at it or listening to it it feels as if I ought to understand it, but in fact (usually) I mostly don't. I guess what triggers the ought-to-understand feeling is that things like letter/n-gram frequencies, word lengths, etc., match English fairly well. A bit like looking at the output of a Markov chain text generator or an RNN trained on English. (Spanish is, for me, more or less the opposite. Given a page of Spanish text I can generally decode it pretty well, albeit slowly, on the basis of other languages I know -- English native, French fairly well, schoolboy Latin -- but it doesn't trigger that feeling of recognition in the way Dutch does.)

raarts 11y ago

I did not get from TFA that the Dutch don't like English. Also I don't think that's true at all (source: I'm Dutch). According to an older HN submission (can't find it right now) the netherlands is, with the exception of the UK, the country with the highest percentage of people speaking English (96%), and I don't know of anyone not liking it.

purpled_haze 11y ago
Good to know it is just this organization having the awful ideas. ;) Btw- I've worked with some great Dutch developers and am in awe of all of the talent there from the things I've seen over the years. The language isn't bad either. :) Just saying it's a mutt language like English, but mutts are good things. Diversity is a strength, not a weakness.

beat 11y ago

A friend of mine grew up in a family scattered across Holland, England, France, and Germany, with a grandmother matriarch in Holland. He was raised mostly in England, so English was his first language. The rule of his grandmother's house was that you could use words from Dutch, English, German, or French, but you had to use Dutch grammar. It was from him that I learned the formula "Dutch is just German with a fire sale on vowels."

fennecfoxen 11y ago

> I propose the Dutch don't like English because their language is also bastardization of different languages. You're calling out Dutch as a bastard? Seems a little backwards, seeing how it's basically English without the French-ification from the Normans. If anyone bastardized the Germanic language group, it was English.

gkya 11y ago
Yes, one needs to know four languages in order to be able to coin a word in English.
Turing_Machine 11y ago
" Seems a little backwards, seeing how it's basically English without the French-ification from the Normans." Well, except for the Flemish dialect of Dutch. That has quite a lot of French in it.