[GekkePrutser]

The French invented the term "Chauvinism" :)

A big difference between the larger and smaller EU countries though is unrelated. The smallest countries don't have the budget for dubbing movies and TV series. This really helps with English proficiency in the smaller countries such as the Netherlands.

[mattmanser]

The Dutch are extremely proficient in English because they teach their children in it from 8 years old. And have been doing it since at least the 80s.

So while what you're saying is technically true, a lot of shows were only subtitled instead of being dubbed, it is also factually false, that is not the main reason for the proficiency.

[GekkePrutser]

No we haven't. I'm Dutch, I was in primary school in the 80s and I definitely didn't get English until I went to secondary school around the age of 12.

I do think the subtitling really helps with proficiency though. School can only teach you so much. Consider Ireland where people get taught the Irish language for 12 years and hardly speak it.

The understanding of different accents, slang, drunken conversation etc can only happen with exposure to native speakers. Content in the original language really helps with that.

[oneepic]

I don't speak it, but I'm told Dutch is very similar to English, at least grammatically.

[mattmanser]

It's not really.

Half of English is Latin based, the other half is Germanic based. Dutch is a Germanic language so maybe that's where you're getting the idea from.

[oneepic]

Biased source, but see examples like the sentence here: https://understandingdutch.com/why-dutch-is-so-easy-to-learn

[rkuska]

I was born in the former Czechoslovakia, both countries (now) are small and the quality of dubbing is pretty high (just fyi).