How many dutch speakers are there on MN?

[belgianmama]

After looking through the different threads it struck me that there are a few Dutch speakers on MN. I thought it'd be nice to have an idea how many exactly and maybe we could all stay in touch.

dutch, but not a dutch speaker i'm afraid. left when i was 5 and ddad could never be bothered speaking dutch to me and english to mom.

amaing that you can forget a whole language really!

Hello Belgianmama, I'm dutch living in Kent with my french husband and DD (2.5yrs) Where do you live? Afraid I work fulltime so little time to go on MN (although last weekhas been quiet at work...)

Goeie Dag Belgianmama (we met on a different thread )
I used to be a fluent dutch speaker (at 6 I couldn't speak english). I spent much of my childhood in the Netherlands. But from the age of 6 I had an English education (partly in the UK but mainly at the British School in the Netherlands) .... I remember a lot, couldn't possibly write much down but could most probably manage quite well if I went to Holland now ...

Tot ziens

Hi ghosty, Amazing to find out you know Dutch! I would never have expected.
To answer your question, Mimie I live in the Midlands. I do go to Kent sometimes though, because my dh works away in Kent, he's gone for 9 days & home for 6, so we do sometimes visit him there. Only if I happen to have the weekend off, though, as I'm a full time student midwife often on placement, doing shifts.

I am like PinkTulips in that I am Dutch but can't really speak it. Oddly I can understand my dad speaking Dutch on the phone to his family or whatever but not anyone else!

They used to speak Dutch to each other and to me I think but I appear to have grown up only speaking English alas..

Tot siens! (sp??)

I lived there for a while and can understand Dutch (I had to warn a Dutch mum at our nursery ). I'm not fluent though, whenever I tried to speak it the locals would just switch to English so I didn't get too much practice apart from restaurants/bars/shops. I can follow the Dutch threads on here without a problem, and can happily surf my way through Dutch websites though.

Who was it that started a drunken thread in Dutch a while ago?

Doei!

Goedemiddag/ Goedeavond. Ik ben een engelse vrouw, getrouwd met een nederlandse man. Ik kan goed nederlands praten, maar schrijven - iets anders. Hi there. Lived in Holland for most of the '90's now live in Colorado where there is a huge Dutch ex-pat community. I also lived in Brussel as an au pair - Rhode St Genese.
Tot ziens en tot schrijfs

hello belgianmama. i am flemish and have been living in the uk (nottingham) for 6 years.

Wow - Alibaldi, I could understand every word of the Dutch you wrote! Maybe I'm not so hopeless after all? I'll have to start trying to read some Dutch to get into practice - I've had the same experience as arfishymeau - whenever I speak Dutch to "proper" Dutch people they just switch into perfect English....

Learning flmish here - can understand what you wrote ali but I couldn't have written it - iyswim

Nice to see all the reactions. It's amazing how many of you have some sort of Dutch connection, but have lost it. Maybe that's the fate of my 2 dc, though I doubt it cause they use it too much.
Good to see a fellow country woman too, asleep. I've been in B'ham for the last 8 years.

Ikke!

Lived in Vlaams Brabant (near Leuven) for nearly 5 years, but relocated to UK last month. Not fluent but can read and understand reasonably well.

lol, greengirl, i'm just like you. i can understand it pretty well but can't speak it for love nor money. whenever i try they just switch to english so i must be completely un-understandable!

Dag, ik spreek vlaams. Ik ben getrouwd met een vlaming en woon in Leuven België, en ik ben engels. Ik spreek redelijk goede vlaams voor mijn bereop als verpleegkundige, want de oude patienten spreken meestal geen engels. Maar mijn uitspraak (is dat de juite woord? ik bedoel 'pronunciation', maar ik kan mijn woordenboek niet vinden) is vreselijk.

Hey, Belgo, shame I've left or we could have had a meet up in Leuven! Am planning to come out for the Christmas market to stock up on De Klok advocaat and kersen in genever. Yum.

Hello there
I just joined mumsnet and was chuffed to find lots of Dutch people here! I'm not Dutch (I'm Scottish) but have a dutch husband and our daughter Hannah is being brought up bilingual. We live in Newcastle now - hubby is from the east of the Netherlands, a small place called Borculo.
I speak a little Dutch, enough to converse with my in-laws but I'm hopeless at writing it. I can follow written Dutch threads though. Maybe this board will be good practice for me

Hallo Belgo. Uitspraak was het juiste woord .

Firbernie: You're better than my dh. He only speaks English to my parents, but then if he were to speak Dutch his accent is so bad that we usually don't catch on that he is!

I have no choice really - dh's parents only speak a few words of English. I'm pretty good at gesture and pointing too though !
When I do speak Dutch, they all say, 'Oh, you sound like Maxima!' I'm sure this is because the princess is the only other foreigner most Dutch speaking people have heard who has learned their language!!!
At the moment my Dutch lessons consist mostly of Nijntje dvds, which my 10month old gets extremely excited about.
Totziens!

Fiona

Hi

Not Dutch, South African so can understand pretty well.

Here's a real Dutchie. Lived in the UK for nearly 12 years now. Bringing up 3 DSs bilingually. Dutch husband too, which helps with that. There are more of us here than have reacted though!

Message withdrawn

Ooh! It's nice to see that list growing. It's also nice to hear of dutch-English bilingual families. They're so rare that sometimes I feel like I'm the only one!

I lived in Belgium (also near Leuven) for 2 years when I did my A'Levels, went to BSB so don't speak flemish but can read it pretty well, always wish I had learnt to speak/write it!

I agree it's great to see so many Dutch/English bilingual children around! Are any of you in the North East? We live in Newcastle. We could get together and eat chocolate letters for Sinterklaas!
Fiona

Wel I am French speaking Belgian - married to a Ducth... kids have Dutch passports (with their stupid photo rules... some will know what I'm talking about!)
I do speak some Dutch, understand 95% of it too.
Kids are mostly English/French speakers though DS shows some interest in Dutch.
We've lived in the UK some 9 years I think (in Kent).