Speaking Dutch With A Strong English Accent
Lately I have become very aware of the accent I use when speaking Dutch. There is nothing wrong with the accent itself. It is very clear, strong and well articulated. As accents go it is a very good accent. If I had to give it a score between 1 and 10 it would be at least an 9, maybe an 9.5.
However, if I was forced to make one criticism it would be that it is entirely the wrong accent of the language I am attempting to speak. For some bizarre reason I have fallen into the habit of speaking Dutch with a very strong English accent.
You might think that this sounds perfectly logical considering the fact that I am and always have been English (it says so in my passport). However, it is not ‘my’ English accent that I am using. Speaking Dutch somehow amplifies my English-ness and brings out my inner upper-class posh gentleman. I don’t consider myself that posh in normal life but the moment I start speaking Dutch with a Dutchman it’s as if I am channelling the spirit of Oscar Wilde.
When buying stroopwafels at the local super market it sounds like I’m on an official trade mission on behalf of Queen Elizabeth herself. Basically, I speak Dutch like a 1950’s BBC radio news reader.
How I manage to mix the refined sounds of English high society and the harsh hacking guttural sounds of the Dutch language is quite beyond even me but at this rate it is only a matter of time before I start using phrases like ‘pip pip’ and ‘good show old chap’ in Dutch.
I am not even sure when or why I started doing this. Maybe it is out of some apologetic politeness towards the person who’s language I am butchering or maybe it is old imperial colonization instincts that are telling me, speak posh enough and you will be understood.
Either way it leads to a lot of unsurprised Dutch faces when I use phrases like, “Ik kom uit England.”
@Keith: if a French person suspects you’re not from his very own region, they’ll start in English. They annoyed us all the time during our summer holidays, starting in bad English while French is my second language and English my third. I’d much prefer it if they just spoke their own language (or dialect).
LOL Stu, I’ve always thought of you as being very slightly, very nicely and very pleasantly posh….so maybe it is your inner spirit emerging on the Dutch channel, so to speak!
Keith – Are you asking them in French for puzzle parts :p
French Bean – Hhhmmm. I guess I was mistaken. You’re not American at all :p
Yvette – I heard a French/Dutch accent for the first time yesterday so yes, there are a lot of different accents used in Dutch here. Welcome to Amsterdam.
Bart – A Dutch accent?
VallyP – I’m a posh person trapped in a South East Londoner’s body :p
^_^ Maybe it’s compensation? :P I’ve been taught RP English, resulting in British people thinking I went to public school, play polo and went to Oxbridge. Nice, however, I’m not quite so rich/posh. :P
Don’t worry Stu every person living in the Netherlands speaks with an accent, except for the people from Friesland… they have a speech problem. :-)
Anneke – So you don’t want to play a game of Polo then? (What’s RP English?)
Yorrick – My wife is half Frisian sir. I challenge you to pistols at dawn :p
Received Pronunciation, aka BBC of the Queen’s English. :D Officially taught in schools and in my case university. I love the way it all sounds, however, like I said, it somehow makes me a badguy/posh bird in the eyes of some people.
Challenge accepted. Will de Prinsentuin or the Oldehoofsterkerkhof suit you? :))
I’ve no idea what my accent sounds like when I’m speaking Dutch, although based on the ever-so-slight smirk on the face of our waitress yesterday, I suspect I may speak with an idiot accent.
Hello Stu,
I am currently looking to emigrate to the land of cheese and clogs myself to live with my Dutch boyfriend, and have been searching for jobs in the Netherlands, and being an avid gamer myself (although I am looking to work in Marketing), the search terms “expat jobs gaming” resulted in my coming across the article about you in the telegraph and eventually, this blog. Do you have any advice for an English graduate searching for jobs abroad? Sadly my degree is also in the extremely useful subject of Literature and its only redeeming feature is that it’s an Oxbridge degree, and I have been struggling to find companies that do support expats – bar typing large company names into google and checking their careers section for the Netherlands, I’ve been at mostly a loss as most of the recruitment agencies have been quite useless (as am I, not speaking Dutch).
And yes, love the blog, really gives me an insight into what I may be getting myself in for! Brilliant stuff!
And yes, on a night in Zwolle when speaking English to ladies in the toilets I found myself a sudden semi-incarnation of Elizabeth Regina herself… and obviously the mass delight of Dutchies proclaiming, “You are from England!!!” simply spurred me further in my impersonation of a Radio 4 newsreader.
AS soon as the hotel manager on our holiday opened his mouth we both said “He’s Dutch” So yes even the Dutch have an accent.
Anneke – It’s funny how the BBC accent is always associated with bad guys. When ever they want someone to do some temp evil guy voice acting in the office they grab me or one of the other English expats.
Yorrick- See you there :P
Alison – You too? I think I do the posh idiot.
Fatemah – I’ll send you an email :)
Dragonlady – I knew it.
Just noticed the two French-related comments.
@Keith: next time, just ask for “une baguette” and drop off “de pain.” And “croissant,” while being a deceptively simple word, can be a dead giveaway is it is not pronounced in a 100% French accent. The way anglophones have a sing-song intonation also does not aid when speaking as French can be quite monotone.
@Bart: It happens, dude.
Yeah Keith. Drop the pain. It hurts.
–Couldn’t help it