Hi everyone! Am new here at Penpal. Would be nice to find some new friends. I'm also try to learn beter French.
Regards AJ
Hii @AJ1974 (hoiii 🙂 ) If you are new maybe this forum helps you: https://penpal-gate.net/forum/13-anything-and-everything/10584-new-members-forum i made it for new members but i still have to update it a LOTTTTT but still maybe you like the overview bc there are a lot of topics that are nice on the forum. And if you have questions you can ask us (kiki and i also speak Dutch bc we are also from The Netherlands so you can do it in English or Dutch!! Have a nice day! 😊😊
Welcome. I'm also new here. Looks like a nice group of people are on here daily. Question for the Dutch folks in this conversation. Does everyone in your country speak English and if so, is it a mandatory class in school growing up? Or do people just pick it up and it's common? It seems like lots of people in non English speaking countries speak English. So I just wonder if it's taught in school?
Welcome. I'm also new here. Looks like a nice group of people are on here daily. Question for the Dutch folks in this conversation. Does everyone in your country speak English and if so, is it a mandatory class in school growing up? Or do people just pick it up and it's common? It seems like lots of people in non English speaking countries speak English. So I just wonder if it's taught in school?
hii!! we get english from group 5 in primary school. so when you are like 8 or 9 at least that was with me. BUTTTT it is not super difficult yet ANDDDD it is only a little bit and each year more. But in high school English is for everybody and it is not a choice. So if you do VWO to be allowed to go to university later it is 6 years and you will have 6 years English as separate classes and also with exams. And in our country people listen to a lot of English music and movies and it is with subtitles not that Dutch is spoken over it. And in high school we also have French and German. And if you do VWO which is the highest level and you choose gymnasium you can also do Latin and Ancient Greek. And in some high schools you can choose Spanish and in VERY few i heard Chinese but not in mine. But i have to learn it from my father because he said it is important. But i still make like 87928173 mistakes and if i type super fast in English I also make a LOTTTT of mistakes. 😬😬🙄🙄
Thanks for explaining the language courses in the Netherlands. I wonder if Mandarin will become more popular over time. I remember in the 1980s and 90s, Japanese was popular in my circle. It's sort of like Korean now.
I just looked this up, https://www.statista.com/statistics/266808/the-most-spoken-languages-worldwide/ Wow, that's interesting from that page about California. I never would have guessed that about half the population don't speak English at home.
Thank you very much @NewTravelerInTown!! We also dont speak English in our home but Dutch and Chinese. My dad wants Chinese BUTTT my mom and i Dutch bc he gets lazy maybe and we live here. So i think it is important. And we have a rule that if for example i have a friend from school ORRR there is maybe a neighbour or ANY person that is not Chinese than we are NOTTT alowed to speak Mandarin at home bc that is not polite.
But at school we have every week English classes and music and movies and series are English (but i also like Korean drama series on Netflix and Viki)!!! 😛 😛 But i think everybody can speak English in my country. 🙂 But maybe not older people bc my parents are not very good in it. But they didnt get it in school when they were in mainland China.