[curation]

Having lived in the Netherlands (Eindhoven - not even Amsterdam) I can confirm that the English spoken there was superior to the English I was raised in in rural Ontario where my teachers said "warshing" instead of washing. The Dutch have an incredibly faculty for language and I admire it.

[consp]

I will have to mention that this varies all over, especially the bit older generation (not exclusively though) also has some weird quirks language wise. So while they might speak and understand the English language quite well the are some parts missing. As an example I like to mention the phrasing of Bolkenstein (a Dutch National/EU politician) of economic handouts to people as "Golden showers". So while proficiency might be high, it's not always ... perfect.

[ben_w]

Even among native speakers, there are often inter-generational shifts: to my father’s generation (1939) “gay” meant “festive, joyous” rather than a sexual preference; my mother used the term “glory hole” to mean “a cupboard used for storage”[0]; and her mother used “Irish” as an insult, and lived just long enough for “wireless” to start to refer to WiFi instead of longwave radio.

[0] admittedly she was starting to develop signs of Alzheimer’s at the point she called it that around me, but that was a legitimate use of the phrase when she was young.

[Digit-Al]

To be fair, we in the UK often talk about the government giving us a golden shower as well. We do phrase it "slightly" differently though :-/

[midasuni]

America calls it “trickle down”, but the principles the same

[repsilat]

I guess if you mean "money is a small amount of liquid" then the analogy is fair? Otherwise the terms are very different -- handouts are not called "trickle down" in the US. The principle is not the same, it is literally the opposite.

"Trickle down" in the US is a term used to disparage the idea that a strong economy benefits the poor even in the absence of explicit redistribution.

[radiator]

I for one don't see the problem in this particular case. To say that giving everyone money is like a golden shower, is an apt simile in my opinion.

[ido]

In the off chance this is not a joke: in colloquial English this means they are pissing on you (golden being the color of urine).

[123pie123]

I'm from the UK and whilst working with a handful of dutch, I was blown away not only by their extremely good english but also their ability to understand and the subitle aspects of english - eg comedy/ sarcasium/ passive aggresstion etc..

[ido]

Dutch is probably the closest language to English that isn’t a dialect of English.

[dfawcus]

No, that would have to be Scots. Especially compared to the region versions of English spoken in Northern England.

It should not be too surprising, given that Scots in large part derived from Northumbrian Old English, with various admixtures including from Scandinavia.

The versions of English spoken in Northern England also had a large input from Norse due to the Dane Law period, and that is part of what drove the change to modern English.

That said, in viewing un-dubbed (but subtitled) Dutch, Belgium, and Swedish TV programs, I have been surprised by the amount I get the gist of directly from the speech. Generally from the core Germanic portion of the languages. Belgium was also interesting due to the occasional mix of stock French phrases and words.

There were a non trivial quantity of 'English' words used, and usually for identical meaning, or a similar gloss.

[ido]

Fair enough, but Dutch is a much more “major” language than Scots (which I believe even in Scotland only a small % of the population speak as their first/mother tongue rather than English).

[dfawcus]

https://www.scotlandscensus.gov.uk/census-results/at-a-glanc...

So 1.5m out of 5.1m, which works out as 29%. I'd suggest these being folk who learnt it as their 'mother' tongue, since Scots is not taught as such in the school system.

I'm not sure how that and the 1.1% figure for use at home can be reconciled.

So if we take that 29% figure, despite being a minority, it is still in a better overall position than Gaelic.

One would expect that Scots could be fairly easily saved from extinction if it got official support, but there seems little political will within the Scottish establishment (Parliament and Government) to do so.

[sumedh]

> Dutch is probably the closest language to English that isn’t a dialect of English.

I still remember hearing two Dutch guys speak in Dutch, I thought there were speaking in English but then I realised I dont understand what they are saying.

[Y_Y]

That's an important point. Note that depending on definitions you might say (West) Frisian of Lowlands Scots claims this title.

[tremon]

Part of that is probably because we have (grandfathered) access to BBC1 and BBC2 here, so ample opportunity to learn British mannerisms and expressions.