alt Hacker NewsI never understood this attitude from native speakers towards their own language. I am a fresh NL citizen, and have struggled SO MUCH to assimilate into society largely due to this prevalent mentality of "dutch sux actually, we can all speak english amirite guys??" its so bafflingly self-destructive to your own culture. But go off I guess.
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It is 'destructive' to Dutch culture if you don't dub a movie in a foreign language? I claim the opposite. Doesn't pretend everything happens in your own culture, feels more like a kind cultural erasure of sorts. There's still more than enough TV content in native language. What I also noticed often in dubbed material is that the dubbed voice has inaccurate translation, subtle reformulations, or skips spoken words entirely, which in more autoritarian countries gives wriggle room to subtle media manipulation. The Dutch get it straight from the horse's mouth at least.
I didn't understand him that way. It's more that it helps if people can more easily pick up a foreign language, or solidify their skills, along the way through media. Doubly so when it's a lingua franca like English.
Though for you, I understand you might have been peeved if people kept switching to English when you just wanted to practice Dutch.
I’m a Dutch native and if it were up to me we’d switch to English. I think it’s dumb that small country like us feels the need to maintain its own language.
It is a massive disadvantage. It means that we’re always late with new stuff because the Dutch market is so small no one wants to make the effort of building Dutch versions.
It's really not that hard. I lived in NL for a year and assimilated Dutch just about as well as my flatmate (a German who was taking a taking a Dutch language class)
Go out and pay attention to your surroundings. Read everything. Make dutch friends. Spend some time outside the large cities.
Dutch is already like half English just spelled and pronounced way differently.
You've probably never watched Indiana Jones speak French... I was forced to when staying for 2 weeks in the south of Belgium as part of a French immersion program. It's unbearable.
When I watch an American movie, I want to hear it the way the director intended it to be. I don't want every villain in every movie have the same voice. If I want to hear Dutch in a movie, I watch a Dutch movie. It's not that deep.
The fact that it helps kids learn a different language is a very nice fringe benefit.
I remember watching an English movie with an incorrect subtitle in school when I was 12, well before my first English class. The whole auditorium laughed because everyone caught the error.