[jotm]

I mean, I didn't mind learning it, in fact I can understand it pretty well on paper. But understanding spoken Dutch/Flemish was nearly impossible, and I could not make proper sentences for a conversation.

The people were very nice (like, almost Hot Fuzz nice :-D), probably why the few who berated my Dutch speaking abilities stood out :-)

[glenndebacker]

I heard it is a very difficult language to master if you are foreign. It took my mother some time to be fluent at it. Also have some former colleague's - Bulgarian/Russian - who even after 10 years of living here still have difficulties.

Fortunately a lot of people don't mind if you aren't fluent in it as they value the effort more then being 100% correct. And those who react hostile just don't understand how difficult the language is. Hell even natives have sometimes problems with all the grammatical rules the Dutch language has!

Hot fuzz is really one of my favourite movies, then again I'm a bit of an anglophile regarding movies/series/... . :-) I lived btw also in Blankenberge for 12 years and born in Bruges. Nowadays I live at the other end of West Flanders.