English this, English that. Some Dutchies feel the English language is corrupting their country, and they’ve had enough. That is why they’ve decided English tram and bus announcements have to go.
At least, that’s what a group of Dutch language enthusiasts (yes, those exist) from the Language Defense Foundation are striving for, AD.nl reports.
You know that Siri-like voice who robotically recites “the Hague Central Station” in a clipped English accent when you’re onboard an HTM bus or tram?
That is exactly what this group of activists are attempting to abolish. They’ve fastened protesting posters to nearly every HTM stop explaining their cause.
Who cares?
Good question. Why does any of this make a difference? Well, according to defenders of the Dutch language, it’s demotivating internationals from making an effort to learn it, as well as being “discriminatory” towards ordinary, native Dutchies.
Not only that, but the English announcements are causing conductors and tram drivers to go “crazy”, according to Jan Heitmeier of the Language Defense Foundation.
READ MORE | Public transport in the Netherlands: the complete guide
Apparently, the original language is “deteriorating” in its use, even for native Dutchies, since many have just resorted to speaking more English amongst themselves. Wonder why *cough*. 👀
More inclusion, less confusion
Are HTM in agreement with the cause? The short answer is no.
While they say they sympathise with the foundation’s concerns, they also claim their services need to prioritise clarity above everything else.
In order to avoid confusing tourists and internationals alike, they’d rather keep their stop announcements universally understandable.
After all, the Hague is meant to be the international city of Peace & Justice, not to mention an expat and tourist hotspot.
Besides, as a spokesperson from HTM points out, the Dutch transport system has already incorporated a lot of English loanwords (such as the “chip card” or “checking in”).
Basically, English is everywhere. You can run, but you can’t hide. Just kidding. 🙃
Do you agree with the notion that public transport announcements should exclusively be in Dutch? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
I’m 100% behind this. If you move to any country that is not a English speaking country, then you better learn their language or maybe you should stick to countries they do speak English in. Its quite rude to expect other counties to be forced to speak English instead of their native language. I’d say dont like it, then leave. Im learning Dutch myself actually, would love to visit The Netherlands speaking Dutch, not English. Call it common courtesy. If you stumble in your words, the people ive found are far more willing to help you, as they see you’re making an attempt than being just another jerk toursist that thinks everyone should speak English. Im sure i will get a lot of hate or retaliation for this, but I don’t honestly care.
I understand your point in smaller towns. Most cities have either lot of tourists, business travelers, students and people here on short stay. Not every non-Dutch person is an expat living in the country. For those who are. Living they should learn Dutch. Making everything Dutch that too in a public transport will only make it inconvenient for lot of these people. We should keep in mind that Netherlands is an international hub for business. It’s nice to be welcoming in that sense. On the contrary 95 percent of Dutch people speak English. I would be willing to bet that the not many of that fiver percent live in major cities. While I appreciate the sentiment it’s just not practical.
Your clearly a troll! Your saying if someone is travelling to a country for a week or two vacation they should learn to speak the language? You should see someone about that problem you have! 🙄
Wait so you haven’t even visited the Netherlands yet? You have no idea what life is like in NL then. Try visiting and have almost every Dutch person reply back in English. The vast majority don’t care about speaking Dutch and know this country is only economically successful because they accommodate the international community.
Totally agree!!I live in the Netherlands for 5 years,kids grow up learning English and Dutch simultaneously because at list before all the television program where in English with subtitles in Dutch.
I understand for small city outside the principals one like Dan hag,Amsterdam etc that they are not really open to speak english but principal city like the one mentioned before its absurd that people have to learn Dutch Since they are international cities that host a lot of international buisness,companies etc.
And as you said as soon you try to speak Dutch they will switch automatically to English.
Luckily you will not decide which language will people learn and where they will live.Try to imagine that The Netherlands is making billions on tourism and english is necessary to avoid chaos… There are also expats and seasonal workers, without them economy wil suffer,and they really don’t need to learn Dutch.
Just to address one thing in your comment, is that the Dutch will not “help” you in your attempt to speak Dutch. They simply switch. They think they’re being helpful, whereas many expats and tourists find it extremely difficult to practice or learn the language while here. I agree that the Netherlands has been maybe too accepting of the English language, but I think simply making it clear for people to get around who don’t necessarily speak Dutch is a simple step to making people feel comfortable while in the city of the International Court.. i mean honestly, I lived in the Hague for nine years, it’s not that big of a deal to hear the English. (And yes, I speak Dutch). I’d rather see businesses being more proactive about helping their staff learn Dutch if they want to work there, since half of the cafes/restaurants in the Randstad employ non-Dutch speakers, forcing Dutch people to speak English at their local cafe, which I find ridiculous. I’d say there’s a time and place to be a stickler about the language, and on the tram that a lot of foreigners also take (where it’s ALSO said in Dutch) is not it and is in my view being accommodating as a courtesy. I say keep it.
Well tbh it’s often not to accommodate, but just the more “efficient” option for “us”. The best advice to give an expat in the Netherlands is “be Dutch, be direct. Say I want to learn Dutch can you help me by speaking Dutch.” Most will be happy to accommodate you!
The reason we need expats in local cafes is because most Dutch people do not want to work anymore… If someone wants to learn Dutch fine. Their English has to be emasculate though! Especially in the Hague, which as most Dutch cities are not Dutch but international now a days.
What is the value of the Dutch language? Why stick with something that does not add value!
Totally agree!
You are also discriminating against some, I knew Dutch perfect spoken, written and reading but after a stroke I lost all language I had learn t so nice to know there are people like you who just see black and white
As a “Dutchy” I’m ashamed of my idiotic and short sighted country men. You and the people saying this do not seem to understand our history!
What’s wrong with you? This is why there is so much war and strife in the world!
As most important international hub and gateway to EU English language should not be clipped. It will have negative impact to international tourism and sizeable earning of the country. Government should rethink such divisive decisions carefully.
This is so wrong… there are so many internationals living here.. and yes, they all learn the language after some time. But living here as a foreigner is pretty hard anyway. Taking away their access to the most basic of informations won’t be good for anyone
And for the ones that want the foreigners to go home, just remember how much we contribute to your economy…
If we all leave at once, you’ll be the ones to suffer. .
Maybe they will have to work 5 days a week ! 🤣😂🤣.It could start revolution in The Netherlands!
They will probably have the same fate as UK.
There are places to push for this more effectively that are not public transport. Doing this would just inconvenience visitors, because expats already know what the announcements mean in Dutch. Perhaps the focus could be more on the institutions that only people willing to settle in the Netherlands have to interact with, wait! don’t we have something called inburgering for that?
Also this obsession with culture preservation baffles me, people will change, their habits and values will change, so too is how they speak. Culture is what you’re experiencing today not what once was or what you aspire it to be.
If culture is pushing the Dutch language you’re going to need to do a whole lot more than having only Dutch in public transport.
What is meant by “to speak Dutch”. I can understand basic sentences, and read, but cannot understand complex or fast ones or slangs, let alone tax documents. Futher, i am sure I have a very strong accent. Am I speaking enough Dutch?
Lets face it, Dutch is not an easy language to learn and i have been told that apart from the good manners types of word that the Dutch would rather you didn’t make a mess of trying to speak Dutch
This is ridiculous and embarrassing ! Of course they should keep the English, and these “activists” should find a better cause than trying to make the lives of tourists and newly arrived immigrants a little harder. If you travel anywhere, public transport announcements are in the local language and English, this foundation should take a little field trip to Bangkok and see what a difference it makes to have announcements in EN and Thai, or perhaps they all speak Thai too?
Why are you typing in English instead of dutch. That is a very bad vision of things.
Agreed as a Dutch person I am so dissapointed by our country men!
It’s disgusting!
So would these same people complaining make sure they understand Mandarin if going to Shanghai on a holiday or would they be happy the Shanghai metro was also in English?
Hi
There are people who are trying to integrate, learning a difficult language as a grown up adult, which makes it more difficult.
I respect the Dutch and every local language and I am a defender of keeping all local languages or even dialects.
However for touristic cities I think having announcement understandable by most people matters.
If the Dutch people worried about expat integration, beside language there are some other factors they need to consider 🙂
Afgezien van het stomme vooroordeel, Engels is een perfecte en universele taal, ik hoop dat Engels ooit de officiële taal in dit land zal worden.
What, Is that the next stop? Do I get off here or
please do get off. You do not seem to understand our history. Educate yourself then come back!
really? when i try to speak dutch the dutch people reply in English..
I’m a foreigner, do speak Dutch but also think it’s quite practical to have announcements in English in public transport. That said I quite understand that Dutch natives are getting tired of having so much English being used in every aspect of their daily lives here. I’m not Dutch and even I find all the English irritating.
And Ellen I found a few quips you made in your article quite patronizing and unnecessary. Actually degraded your argument . “ Dutch speak English among themselves. Cough cough .. wonder why”
HTM’s announcements are just ridiculously over-the-top. They really need to take another look at it.
First of all; that “Volgende halte / Next stop” has to go. You can just replace it with a signal sound like that bell sound on the trams in Amsterdam.
Secondly; we really don’t need to know every major and minor attraction in the vicinity of every stop. “Tourist Information”, “Library”, “Miniature City”, “Museum this, Museum that”. Please shut up already. Everyone who’s smart enough to figure out which tramline they need, is surely smart enough to remember the name of the stop where they should disembark.
Just give me a ‘bong’ followed by the name of the stop and then please just be quiet.
It drives me nuts sometimes.
I agree with your view-point.@Foreigner of the Netherlands. The Kingdom of the Netherlands is a gateway for trade, business and education for many decades. Learning also comes with humility. Growth too adds to humility. Can you Imagine in a country of the 21 st century where there are advancements in science and technology, welcoming tourists and internationals alike struggling to get the basic instruction availing the benefits of wonderful public transportation system….. hahaha .. joke…
There is a saying in our Indian culture and I guess this is a scientifically-proven fact, more the languages, the larger and efficient a human brain is. Additionally, the students have the option to learn German and French at schools. Most dutch kids learn and understand those two languages from their neighbouring countries…. how about that?????
The language what the people of North-holland speak is totally different from the dialects spoken widely across brabant and Limburg bordering German towns and totally different from that is spoken in Friesland.
As a linguist , what I understand is dutch language is a derivation of many other foreign languages…. such as German (60-70 per cent), French words and some Swedish words…
How about those?????
Speaking or incorporating other foreign language into your culture doesn’t mean that your language is washed away… it simply means language is ever-evolving.
Sadly, this has been the mindset of the dutch for many decades, they forget that they imposed their languages abroad during their colonial era. Although this does not concern to present-day generation, it is a fact and history not to be forgotten. For example, all those nations under The Netherlands Antilles had their own language and culture. Today, these countries still strive to speak and incorporate their own language into the society. They understand, read write and speak dutch.
To all those narrow-minded Dutchies, what goes around comes around… Humility is a good way to wisdom and knowledge.
So, you may want to think on that????
Thanks
As a frequent visitor, I think this is bothersome, I am brazilian fluent in English but know a few words in Dutch….will I have to look out the windows of the tram to see where I am? To find the stop I want? That is a shame.
After pandemic it seems that Dutch government (probably not only Dutch) is abusing their position to make life harder for everyone in Netherlands, not only expats and visitors. Really pathetic. Only beneficiaries for this change will be those “Dutch language enthusiasts”,from whom probably less than half actually use public transport services. At the same time other EU countries are required to provide multilingual services for everyone. Dutch government, one of the creators of EU, now stand against unified Europe. Segregation seems to be the new goal after the pandemic, and that war in Ukraine is a great opportunity of an excuse to increase control over the population by segregation. Pathetic excuse of a government.
I’m a Scot and love the Netherlands and it’s people. Part of that is recognising the unique identity of the country, it’s culture and language. The language is famously tricky for non Dutch nationals which has its appeal in some ways. However removing English would bring more negatives than benefits in my opinion. Perhaps instead of taking a quite forceful approach to banning English a more innovative and productive approach could be taken to help educate non Dutch speakers. Some clever marketing by using spaces on public transport to highlight and teach key phrases coukd be a more fun, engaging and productive way to promote Dutch to non nationals and raise the profile of the language itself would be better.
Three points
1. In major cities and elsewhere if you have tourists then you want to be inviting. Having station and disruption announcements in English aren’t that bad. All the signage is still Dutch.
2. Kids are learning English in schools and it’s the de facto language in tech, aviation, and many other sectors. So having some English is good as it helps with a “this is this in my language and in English” like it or not the Netherlands is becoming a dual language country much like parts of the US.
3. As a us immigrant, it’s helpful to me to hear the Dutch and the English so that I build the memory so I can learn Dutch. The problem is that, while in larger cities, once a dutchie hears my horrible Dutch, they switch to english as it’s more efficient. So that is the thing that causes less incentive…..except that I have to be B1 for permanent residence. (kudos to my local brown bar who forces me to order drinks in Dutch)
If you think the language is going to die because of a train station or tram stop announcement, then the language is going to die shortly regardless. Trust me, Dutch is doing fine.
Strange thing about this story is, no English person asked for this to happen. Its basically down to the Dutch themselves and their transport authorities. So please stop blaming English for something that is out of control.
I agree 100%!
Let’s hear MORE DUTCH & less English – there’s already too much English in all languages across the globe.
Dutch is SUCH A BEAUTIFUL LANGUAGE!
JA voor Nederlands!!
I’m a 5th generation German speaking South African and living in the Global South and speak 3 official South African languages, English, Afrikaans and Sepedi. Tydens my 2 kort besoeke aan Nederland in die vorige dekade, het ek gemaklik Afrikaans met Nederlanders gepraat. Vriende en bekendes het in Nederlands teruggeantwoord. Wanneer ek egter met ‘n onbekende Nederlander in Afrikaans aanspreek, het die dialoog dadelik na Engels verander. Ek het dit nooit verstaan nie. Die Nederlandse taal is pragtig en ek leer telkens nuwe woorde. Afrikaans en Nederlands is broedertale. Taal is o.a. ‘n uitdrukkingsvorm van / oor die kulturele lewe van / oor ‘n gegewe geografiese plek. Dit moet gekoester en bewaar word. Die een- dimensionele denke van optrede en verwagtinge van Engelssprekende besoekers aan Nederland is nie gangbaar nie, dis eerder luiheidsdenke. Ek ondersteun veeltaligheid, wat verknoop met respek vir die ander een – respekvolle eiebelange is niks mee verkeerd nie, ook in die taalmilieu. Wenn ich in Deutschland bin, spreche, höre und lese ich Deutsch und respektiere ihr Kulturleben. Viva Nederlands in Nederland!
Please don’t take offense, for there are many, many things I do love about the Netherlands and its people and it is, in my mind, one of the most beautiful cultures in the world, but the language is hardly among my favourites, not that I have one, for being so guttural. In any case, beauty is, in this case, in the ear of the beholder. This said, if you and the campaigners really feel that it is important to implement changes to preserve the language, which is understandable in a growingly globalised world, may I suggest another place to begin, with far more impact? The Eurovision song contest. In the last 20 years, only ONE song used Dutch. I’m not a big fan of the contest, but it does reach millions around the world. Speaking of music and of its power to seduce hearts and minds to foreign languagea, and despite his repertoire being mostly in English, I give credit to Jim van der Zee for firstly making my ears (and mind) a bit more open to Dutch, with his cover of Mooi, which I happened to stumble across after listening to another of his covers, in English, of a song from my country of birth (Portugal).
It’s in Dutch and English.
Don’t whine kiddos, there are more important topics
Why not making Tram accessible only to Dutch native?
that’s can also be a solution…
Let’s be pragmatic: The Dutch speaking population is 0.32 %. Dutch Speaking Population is the percentage of world population speaking Dutch language. But yeah… Nationalist and border.
You can make an effort and learn the language but they will answer back in English anyway especially when they hear your accent.
They complain you don’t learn the language and when you do it’s still a problem . Just a different mentality I suppose
A lot of countries are like this and still you feel left out even though you make the effort with the language
If your not Dutch your not interesting
But not all people are like that I just think from my perspective some people are bored and have nothing better to do in life
I find it petty
Life is too short for bullshit
The fact that English has become a second language in the Netherlands can indeed make learning Dutch less of a priority, not to say more difficult, but as an expat who moved last year to the Netherlands, who is fluent in English but (still) struggling with Dutch, I can tell you there are already plenty of motivations to learn it, since a lot of companies ask for it from job candidates, especially in qualified jobs. But to focus on Public Transport?! In international hub cities like Amsterdam, Rotterdam or The Hague, which are visited by thousands of foreign turists, English helps people getting around every day. It shouldn’t replace Dutch announcements, in my view, but there’s no reson why you cannot have both. I would rather see the campaigners focusing their efforts on making Dutch courses more accessible, perhaps with some government and corporate sponsorship. That, I believe, would be a better way to promote the integration of expats and the preservation of the language, though you might excuse me for having doubts as to whether those very same people who are promoting this radical move would actually want it, as it might require their (public) funding and also mean more competition from expats when they apply for a new job.
I get it but it will only cause more problems for everyone. English is the language of Business and is fast becoming the common language of travel. When a Frenchman and a German and a Italian all meet, they speak English. When a Malaysian, Japanese and Singaporean all meet, they speak English. Having a common language improves productivity. If there is any culture that promotes punctuality and productivity, it is the Dutch. Ask the workers that are tired of hearing English if they want to be asked 50 times a day for directions? Option A or Option B.
The English language is a very diverse language and having a very diverse international community in the Nederlands is an extremely important factor of diversity.The translation has made it easier to learn dutch in the trams and buses in our daily connections to and from work and other activities.
English is one of the easiest languages to learn. Sing, sang, sung. That’s it. Three words – at most – to memorise and express the entire spectrum of past, present and future of a verb. It connects the world with simplicity, despite its more complex wealth in ideomatic expressions. And yes, great point, its coexistence in public spaces actually makes it a lit bit easier to learn Dutch.
But when its to recruit and exploit English speakers to work on factorys and warehouses, then its alright for them to just speak English? Are the Netherlands only worried about the profit that they can make from imigrants? I lived in ‘s-Hertogenbosch and I speak from experience. And Labour Authority should check the conditions of English speakers working (and paying taxes) on factories and warehouses, and the kind of accomodation they put these people in, its really bad.
Make Dutch language great again 😎
I would be a bit more critical of this. How much “language” does a person even hear in a bus or tram? Especially singe most of the announcements are in dutch anyways, except for really central locations. Seems more about reducing accessibility to visitors and internationals.than anything else.
I agree and if the article is correct so do the transport authorities. It’s a bit daft. I came to the Netherlands in 1984 (eek) completely monolingual and with a strong belief that I was likely to stay that way – given my French O’Level result. I travelled by bus, train and tram every school day between Amsterdam and Den Haag. I taught in English at an International School It was a 3hr round trip – if all went to plan. When in transit I had not a clue what was going on most of the time. Only the train did the occasional announcement n English the rest of the time I followed the herd to wherever it moved to whenever there was an announcement and if that failed I asked a fellow passenger most of whom, were delighted to help me out and yes, practice their English. They always asked ‘When are you going to learn Dutch?’. I had no time for lessons as I had two young kids but by copying phrases to use at the butcher, the baker and the candlestickmaker, as well as watching English speaking TV programmes on Dutch telly and reading the Dutch subtitles (and using’ teletext’ for Dutch programmes) I slowly picked it up. Nowadays, nearly 40 yrs later my Dutch is waaay better than the English of the average Dutch person and my ‘foreign’ accent is very slight but STILL, too often I get replied to in English. I continue in Dutch, they continue in English and it becomes a case of who blinks first. I refuse to byckle ha ha. I love living here, I’ve accepted I’ll always be a foreigner. Ignore the Dutch Language Defenders and don’t blink first!!