Why Do The Dutch Always Reply in English?

Dutch is not an easy language. Sure, it’s easy enough for Dutch people but they have the unfair advantage of having being born Dutch. The rest of us have to learn it the hard way. We have to go to lessons, study books, and spend hours learning how to make the hard-g sound without choking.

So it’s weird to go through all that hard work only to have every Dutch person you talk to reply in English. It kind of defeats the whole purpose of learning Dutch.

It’s like spending years at medical school only to have all your patients start performing their own surgery.

The ‘Dutch’ Conversation

Imagine the scene…

You’ve been learning Dutch for a little while now. You’ve mastered simple Dutch conversations with your teacher and fellow students. It’s been difficult but you’ve worked hard and you are starting to get quite good at it (well done).

You are finally ready to have a conversation with a real life Dutch person outside the controlled and safe environment of the class room. You might still feel a little nervous about it. After all, some of your pronunciation is still a little rough and, if you are honest with yourself, your word usage is a bit simplistic. But, it is enough to get started (so don’t be so down on yourself). You know the best way to improve now is to put everything you’ve learned into practice and start having real Dutch conversations (you’ve got this).

So, a situation presents itself to you. You meet a Dutch person at a party or some other such social gathering. You start up a conversation about something in Dutch…

And then the Dutch person replies in English.

That was weird. You definitely said something in Dutch. Why did they reply in English?

You try again, responding in Dutch to what they just said in English. It feels a little weird but it should be enough to make it clear that you would like to continue the conversation in Dutch.

But then the Dutch person responds in English, again!

What’s going on? Did you find the one Dutch person in the whole of the Netherlands who can’t speak Dutch? What happened to the natural advantage of being born in the Netherlands. If it turns out Dutch people struggle with their own language what hope do the rest of us have.

You stop to think about it for a moment and no, that’s not it. They have been giving coherent replies to what you’ve said so far (even if they have done so in English). This would heavily imply that they understood your Dutch.

You try again, responding to their English answer in Dutch. It feels really weird now but it should make it very clear that you want to speak to them in their own language.

They reply in English again!

They haven’t even acknowledge that you have been speaking Dutch as they reply in English. They don’t seem to realize how odd the conversation has become.

The English person is speaking to the Dutch person in Dutch, but that Dutch person is replying to the English person in English. Not only is it a conversation taking place in two different languages, but neither speaker is using their mother tongue. This does not seem like the most effective way to hold a coherent conversation. Some people might even consider it a crime against language.

The other option is that you’re understanding of the Dutch language is much better than you thought. Maybe your brain is auto translating their reply and you are ‘hearing’ it in English in your head? That seems unlikely though (as nice as it would be).

If the conversation continues like this it can begin to feel like a battle of wills. Who will break first and switch back to their own language. It’s a linguistic tug-of-war.

The English Reply

So why do the Dutch always reply in English? There are three possible reasons why a Dutch person might reply in English:

1) They are trying to be helpful:

The truth is most Dutch people switch to English because they want to be helpful. They know how difficult the Dutch language is (some of them are weirdly proud of that). They want to make the conversation easier for us. Yet, they do not realize that by being helpful they are not actually helping. We have to struggle through difficult Dutch conversations. It’s how we can improve.

Some Dutch people don’t want to suffer through our struggle though and that leads us to…

2) They don’t want you to speak Dutch:

On the other end of the spectrum are those who reply in English to discourage you from speaking Dutch. These are usually the ones with very high standards. They don’t want to hear another person murder their language. I myself was once told by a Dutch checkout girl that my Dutch was horrible. She told me never to speak the language again. Luckily that kind of reaction is rare.

3) They want to practice their English:

There are some Dutch people who switch languages because they want to practice their English. They are just as enthusiastic and excited about speaking another language as you are. After all, this is their chance to speak to a real live English person, in English. They are the mirror image of you in their linguistic enthusiasm and desire to learn.

Trying to learn Dutch

Whether it’s trying to be helpful, being critical or being enthusiastic, all these things make it difficult for expats. How can expats learn the Dutch language if we never get a chance to practice it. It does not matter if you’ve been learning Dutch for a week or over twenty years either. The Dutch will still try to switch to English when talking to you. It still happens to me too.

Luckily, if you ask them to speak Dutch so that you can practice, most Dutch people will be happy to do so. It’s just funny when your continued attempts to speak Dutch was not enough to make that clear.

I’ve been talking about English of course because that is my experience as an Englishman. If a Dutch person knows a bit of your language too (German, French, Flemish, Klingon, etc) they will switch to it when you try speaking Dutch with them. You’ll be surprised how quickly they can identify your language too.

Good luck.