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In the Netherlands, the English language can be spoken by the vast majority of the population, with estimates of English proficiency reaching 90% [1] to 93% [2] of the Dutch population. Contributing factors for the high degree of English fluency are the similarity of the two languages, the country's small size, dependence on international trade ...
The official language is Dutch, with West Frisian as a secondary official language in the province of Friesland. Dutch, English, and Papiamento are official in the Caribbean territories. Netherlands literally means "lower countries" in reference to its low elevation and flat topography, with 26% situated below sea level.
English is a West Germanic language in the Indo-European language family, whose speakers, called Anglophones, originated in Early Medieval England. [4] [5] [6] The namesake of the language is the Angles, one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to the island of Great Britain.
The EF English Proficiency Index ( EF EPI) attempts to rank countries by the equity of English language skills amongst those adults who took the EF test. [2] It is the product of EF Education First, an international education company, and draws its conclusions from data collected via English tests available for free over the internet.
This is an incomplete list of Dutch expressions used in English; some are relatively common (e.g. cookie), some are comparatively rare.In a survey by Joseph M. Williams in Origins of the English Language it is estimated that about 1% of English words are of Dutch origin.
In the Dutch language, the Dutch refer to themselves as Nederlanders. Nederlanders derives from the Dutch word Neder, a cognate of English Nether both meaning "low", and "near the sea" (same meaning in both English and Dutch), a reference to the geographical texture of the Dutch homeland; the western portion of the North European Plain.
Under the Dutch Constitution, Amsterdam is the capital of the Netherlands. Since the 1983 constitutional revision, the constitution mentions "Amsterdam" and "capital" in chapter 2, article 32: The king's confirmation by oath and his coronation take place in "the capital Amsterdam" (" de hoofdstad Amsterdam "). [235]
English is the most commonly spoken foreign language in 19 out of 25 European Union countries (excluding Ireland) [11] In the EU25, working knowledge of English as a foreign language is clearly leading at 38%, followed by German and French (at 14% each), Russian and Spanish (at 6% each), and Italian (3%). [12] ".