# Dutch Fighters Knows English???



## Coke (Mar 2, 2011)

Do people in Holland speak English regularly?

Many MMA fighters from Holland speak fluent English: Alistair Overeem, Valentijn Overeem, Marloes Connen, Stephan Struve,Bas Rutten, Gegard Mousasi. 

As well as kickboxers: Semmy Schilt, Andy Souwer, I think Remy and Manhoef.

Do dutch people speak English regularly? The fighters speak very very Fluent English, doesn't sound like its their 2nd language....


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## UKMMAGURU (Nov 15, 2009)

Coke said:


> Do people in Holland speak English regularly?
> 
> Many MMA fighters from Holland speak fluent English: Alistair Overeem, Valentijn Overeem, Marloes Connen, Stephan Struve,Bas Rutten, Gegard Mousasi.
> 
> ...


The Netherlands and some other Northern European countries speak English very well, i think the Netherlands has something like 75% proficieny in English which in incredible when you consider that there are also alot of foreigners in Holland who do not actually speak Dutch.

Denmark (Kampmann) and Sweden (Gustafsson) are probably even more proficient than the Netherlands.


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## mattandbenny (Aug 2, 2007)

Yea like gazh said, most people in Holland speak English fluently, its their second language and is taught in schools there from a reasonably young age.


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## Coke (Mar 2, 2011)

I think Dutch fighters speak English in Holland because its too fluent for it to be second language.

Kampmann sounds like a native English speaker. Alexander Gustafsson speaks perfect English, just slightly different tones.

Both Gustafsson and Kampmann sounds even more American than ANY UK fighters like: Micheal Bisping, Ross Pearson, Paul Daley, Dan Hardy, Andre Winner. I think Kampmann and Gustafsson watch alot of American TV. I actually think Kampmann moved to US 5 years ago since he started in UFC.

All dutch fighters, Gustafsson, Kampmann speak English very often. You can really tell if someone doesn't speak English often, guys like Andersen Silva, Wanderlei, Lyoto, Shogun, Nog brothers sometimes need translators. Dutch fighters never need translators.


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## Couchwarrior (Jul 13, 2007)

I guess it's the combination of the Scandinavian languages and Dutch being very closely related to English and also having too few native speakers to bother dubbing English language movies to those languages. I'd say Kampmann's English sounds exceptionally good, but he's been living in America for a while already so that would explain it. Gustafsson sounds like a normal Swede with decent English, though some Swedes have a stronger accent.


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## UKMMAGURU (Nov 15, 2009)

"Kampmann sounds even more American than ANY UK fighters like: Micheal Bisping, Ross Pearson, Paul Daley, Dan Hardy, Andre Winner."

Lol, this is a very odd statement.. UK fighters are not Amnerican so why would they have an American accent?

Kampmann uses non-rhotic English, meaning that the R sound at the end of a word like 'striker' is the way the English say it, people from Boston and New York sometimes say it that way aswell.


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## mmaswe82 (Feb 22, 2010)

Yeah it's the same here in Sweden. We learn English from like 2nd grade and also we don't dub anything on TV so we watch mostly American and English shows with subtitles.

I was pretty good at speaking English even at the low age of 6 or 7 years old. It's the same in all of Scandinavia and I can Imagine Holland as well.

Most people in Sweden know atleast 3 languages.


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## Voiceless (Nov 8, 2010)

Couchwarrior said:


> *I guess it's the combination of the Scandinavian languages and Dutch being very closely related to English and also having too few native speakers to bother dubbing English language movies to those languages.* I'd say Kampmann's English sounds exceptionally good, but he's been living in America for a while already so that would explain it. Gustafsson sounds like a normal Swede with decent English, though some Swedes have a stronger accent.





mmaswe82 said:


> Yeah it's the same here in Sweden. *We learn English from like 2nd grade and also we don't dub anything on TV so we watch mostly American and English shows with subtitles.*
> 
> I was pretty good at speaking English even at the low age of 6 or 7 years old. It's the same in all of Scandinavia and I can Imagine Holland as well.
> 
> Most people in Sweden know atleast 3 languages.


It's basically those explanations above. English is a Germanic language with around 50% of the words having a Germanic origin (10% are directly of Latin origin and 40% of French origin which came after 1066). For example Old-English (time around when the Beowulf saga was written) is very similar in grammar and vocabulary to Old-German. As the Scandinavian languages (except Finnish, which is a Finno-Ugric language) are Germanic languages and thereby closely related to English, it's easier for those people to learn English than it is for Brazilians, French, Russian or any Asian native speakers. 
Then, in those countries it's mostly mandatory to take at least one 2nd language in school which usually is English.
And in addition those countries with rather small population don't have a dubbing culture for films (unlike Germany, France and Spain where basically every film or TV series is dubbed), so usually only films for kids at an age where they can't read yet are dubbed, the rest gets subtitles. In that way they are very much exposed to English which helps them to learn it even better. That's also a main reason why they have a tendency to adapt more an American accent than a British one as most films they watch come from the US.
And last but not least, those fighters often train in the US or have other types of English business relations, so they have to use (and thereby train) their English a lot.

@ mmaswe82: Norwegian doesn't count as a foreign language for you, it's just a Swedish dialect  (only joking with a grain of truth  )


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## Budhisten (Apr 11, 2010)

Kampmann being Danish is very good at English. But so are most Danes, we are taught English from 2nd or 3rd grade through 10th grade. And most people who go to highschool afterwards also have it there for an additional three years.

Also as the guys mentioned above, TV, movies and so on isn't dubbed here - so it's all English with subtitles, and the presence of both the actual language and the rough translation on the bottom of your screen helps you pick it up quickly.

Also, 40-50% of our college education is available in English, some exclusively, so that helps too


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## mmaswe82 (Feb 22, 2010)

Voiceless said:


> It's basically those explanations above. English is a Germanic language with around 50% of the words having a Germanic origin (10% are directly of Latin origin and 40% of French origin which came after 1066). For example Old-English (time around when the Beowulf saga was written) is very similar in grammar and vocabulary to Old-German. As the Scandinavian languages (except Finnish, which is a Finno-Ugric language) are Germanic languages and thereby closely related to English, it's easier for those people to learn English than it is for Brazilians, French, Russian or any Asian native speakers.
> Then, in those countries it's mostly mandatory to take at least one 2nd language in school which usually is English.
> And in addition those countries with rather small population don't have a dubbing culture for films (unlike Germany, France and Spain where basically every film or TV series is dubbed), so usually only films for kids at an age where they can't read yet are dubbed, the rest gets subtitles. In that way they are very much exposed to English which helps them to learn it even better. That's also a main reason why they have a tendency to adapt more an American accent than a British one as most films they watch come from the US.
> And last but not least, those fighters often train in the US or have other types of English business relations, so they have to use (and thereby train) their English a lot.
> ...


Yeah true, Norweigan is very similar to Swedish and somewhat Danish as well. I understand Norweigan almost perfect and Danish...well if they speak really really slow  Finish and Icelandic not so much tho lol, however they can usually speak Swedish so it's easy enough in Scandinavia.


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## UKMMAGURU (Nov 15, 2009)

Kampmann (Denmark) and an MMA Reporter (Sweden).

Both using different types of English, but both speaking it very well.

:thumbsup:


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## hadoq (Jan 6, 2011)

yes, northern european are very good english speakers. But for France, and in general southern europe, it's much more rare.

To give you an example, out of all my real life friends and family, I'm the only one who can speak english almost fluently and also the only one who use it on a daily basis (somedays even more than french)

We actually even have a law that forbids the use of english words in the media under most circumstances. How retarded is that?

In my area in particular, which is next to the german border, most kids learn german at school and the general consensus is that german is "better" to learn than english because we live right next to germany.

the thing is, you can speak english virtually anywhere in the world. And you can only speak german in germany.

So all the kids have amazing grades in german because part of most families here are german (a hundred or so years ago, it was germany here), and no one ever gets to learn english.


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## Budhisten (Apr 11, 2010)

Here in Denmark the various languages each have a priority:

1. Danish (At least taught for 10 years)
2. English (At least taught for 7 years)
2/3. German/French, each student must pick one (A least taught for 5 years)
4. Spanish (Regularly taught for 3 years)

And everything else after that


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