Job Discussion Forums

[c-way]

I spent this Winter vacation traveling around Germany and into the Netherlands and I was blown away by how well they spoke English.
In Germany, even though they had accents, many German friends of my girlfriend were very advanced and comfortable having conversations fully in English with no difficulty understanding our regular spoken English.
As for the Dutch, we spent New Years Day with a friend and her family, all of who were near fluent in English. Almost everyone we met in Amsterdam seemed at least conversational and it seemed as if someone not knowing English would be the exception to the rule.

When I asked them how they came to use English so naturally, many replied that they had learned English in junior high and high school. Fair enough, I said, but most Japanese students can say the same but generally their English is atrocious.

So the question I pose to you readers is what is the difference between the Dutch and Japanese that accounts for the (I feel) drastic difference in their general ability to speak English.

[rampo]

You don't know that German, Dutch and English are in the Germanic language family, it seems.

Dutch is the closest language to English. It's far easier for them to learn it than for the Japanese. The Netherlands is also extremely close to England and travel between the two countries is cheap and frequent.

[saloc]

The Dutch and Germans (and Swedes, Norwegians and Danish) are, generally speaking, exceptionally good at English. They have very good educational systems and have more exposure to English then the Japanese. But you really can't compare Japanese learners to Dutch or Germans because Japanese and English are so very, very different and, without trying to suggest that the Dutch etc are not doing a fantastic job with regard to learning other languages, it is much easier for people from those countries to master English. Likewise, it is much easier for most English speakers to learn language from Northern or Western europe than it is for them to learn Japanese. Add to that the fact that many Japanese have no real need to learn English, and you can begin to understand why so few Japanese speak English well.

[ironopolis]

Exactly what rampo said. For the Dutch, both English and German are extremely easy to pick up. I'd also add that hardly anyone learns Dutch as a foreign language and given this, the tiny size of their country and the unlikelihood of them being able to ignore the world outside their borders, it's a simple necessity for them to acquire proficiency in English.

Fair comparisons are made when it's like with like, so Japan v Holland on English ability is not fair as their English learning situations could hardly be more different. A fairer comparison might be with respective ability (or even interest) in learning neighbouring countries' languages. Or if it's only English you're considering, then other East Asian countries would make for a fairer comparison. FWIW, I think Japan does indeed lag behind both Korea and Taiwan in general level of English, not that either are anywhere near the level of northern Europeans, obviously. I don't have enough experience of mainland China to judge.

[GambateBingBangBOOM]

[furiousmilksheikali]

You may have noticed that there are a lot of Americans, Canadians, British and Australians that have been here in Japan for years - sometimes 10, 15 or 20 years - and still have almost zero Japanese ability. Try finding me a Chinese or Korean who has lived here for the same amount of time with a similarly low level of Japanese.

[canuck]

Most western Canadians take French for many years in junior and senior high school. Most can remember merci, fermez la porte and that's about it.

[Apsara]

I lived with Dutch housemates for a while- all of them spoke near perfect English. One of the reasons they suggested for why Dutch people speak English so well is that all English language programmes in the Netherlands are subtitled rather than dubbed. Therefore they are exposed to native-level English, passively at least, from a very young age.

The other reason is obviously as other people have mentioned- the similarity to English. Without ever having learned Dutch I could often figure out at least the topic of conversation when my housemates were speaking in Dutch- there's no way I could have got the gist of a Japanese conversation before I started learning Japanese, and the reverse is also true I imagine.

[Zzonkmiles]

Dutch, English, German, French, Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese are all Indo-European languages. Word order is generally similar and there are many cognates, thus facilitating language learning. I don't think the Dutch can speak English so well because they are Dutch. I think it's more a combination of English education in Holland as well as the fact that they are studying English instead of something like Arabic or Vietnamese, which belong to a different language family.

[Mark]

I don't think it's fair to say that it's easy for the Dutch to learn English. If you talk to first generation Dutch immigrants who went abroad 40 or 50 years ago after the war, they would not say that learning English was easy. It was very difficult for them. I have relatives who never really managed to learn English all that well despite living in an English country for many years.

It's easy for modern Dutch students to learn English in school for 3 main reasons: 1) they study foreign languages properly, 2) they are expected to (and many want to) learn English (ie, it's considered normal and possible) and 3) Dutch is closely related to English so it doesn't take as long to learn English as it would to learn a language like Japanese.

I'm not discounting the linguistic closeness, but I believe that the most important point is that they study foreign languages properly and they want to learn and it's considered a normal and completely possible thing.

However, if Dutch students were to switch from studying English to studying Japanese (but using the same methods and approach) I guarantee that they would speak Japanese far, far, far better than Japanese speak English.

I can't say it enough, Japanese study foreign languages incorrectly. The methods they use are not designed to produce language ability, in fact language development is actually hindered by this approach to language learning.

[furiousmilksheikali]

Another important factor is that the Netherlands is within the EU and the Dutch-speaking world is very small. The domestic economy of the Netherlands is far smaller than that of Japan and in order to compete, the Dutch require at least another language. The study of English in the Netherlands is not simply academic but one which impacts on their lives to a far higher degree than it does to people in Japan.

How many people really need English in comparison to the proportion of Dutch people who know another language?

[rampo]

[Mark]

[furiousmilksheikali]

[shuize]

Here's the simple answer:

The Dutch care about learning English. Most Japanese don't. Much like the long-term western ex-pats noted above who live here decades with atrocious Japanese. They just don't care.