Do we all have to speak The Queen's English?

Alas, I've spent half my life watching things that might or might not be useful to me. And still doing it. I was tempted to watch this one too - out of curiosity - but the speaker's English is so bad that I decided to do something else instead. Why do people who can't speak English insist on making videos in English?

Bad English is the world language

Is the following recognisable? When I have meetings with the British for my work, I am always a bit tense beforehand because of the language. And afterwards I am more tired than after other conversations. But if I have to have a conversation in English with a group of Spaniards, Chinese or Germans, this does not bother me at all. I don't think about things like vocabulary, grammar or pronunciation; I just get on with my work.

In international traffic, most people speak very good bad English. The joke comes from Heather Hansen, communication specialist and language coach. And according to her, my experience is quite normal. People who have English as a second language have much more comfortable conversations with each other than with people whose mother tongue is English.

So it is not the Queen's English, but bad English that is the lingua franca of the business world. Worldwide, 1.5 billion to 2 billion people speak English, according to various estimates. The number of people who speak English as a second language is much larger than the number of native speakers. That is about 370 million. In China alone, more people are now learning English.

In international traffic, most people speak bad English very well.
The funny thing is that all those people who speak 'bad English' generally understand each other perfectly. And precisely when a native speaker joins such a group, the number of communication problems increases, say experts such as Hansen.

There are several reasons for this. People who speak English as a second language tend to talk more slowly, purposefully and cautiously to others. They check more often whether the other person understands them and in this way help the other person in the conversation. A native speaker thinks much less, speaks more and often faster, makes more jokes and uses expressions that others do not understand.

If a Briton says things like: "You've let the cat out of the bag", people who speak bad English are more likely to think of the liberation of a pet than of the disclosure of a secret. And when Americans use too many of their beloved sports metaphors - such as: "That's a ground ball" - it doesn't make the conversation any better (which, by the way, is roughly the meaning of this baseball expression).

"In lingua franca situations, the native speaker is at a disadvantage," says Jennifer Jenkins, professor of international English at the University of Southampton. "It is more difficult for them to understand the other person and to be understood."

She and colleagues advise native speakers to speak more concisely, directly and simply in international situations, and to check more often that they are really understood by asking questions and then listening carefully.

So the advice is actually that the minority, the native English speakers, should adapt to the majority, the people who speak bad English. They should worry less about the quality of the others' English and focus more on how they can get everyone to speak it without stress and reticence.

When I have another meeting with British colleagues soon, I will point this out to them in my best English and Dunglish.

Ben Tiggelaar writes weekly about personal leadership, work and management

I stubbornly keep talking Dutch on the terrace

Recently two words sounded that I hadn't heard in a while: 'English please'. They came from the mouth of a waitress on an Amsterdam terrace, with an air of complete naturalness. The sunshine and the beautiful view of the IJ could not prevent irritation from immediately bubbling up in me.

For years now, it has been customary in the hospitality industry and shops in Amsterdam - and I suspect also in Rotterdam, Utrecht and The Hague - to be served by people who do not speak a word of Dutch. During the lockdown, the phenomenon went underground for a while, but now it is back in full force. And it goes beyond the catering or clothing industry: just this week I had a spokesperson from the University of Amsterdam on the phone who did not speak Dutch.

You can shrug your shoulders at that - and many of my friends do. After all, we live in an internationally oriented country, even in a metropolis, globalisation is unstoppable, we Dutch are open-minded and besides, we all speak excellent English, right?

I think differently myself. An English-speaking waitress like this may belong to the category of minor inconveniences, but it does hide a major, persistent problem: the complete disdain the Dutch have for their own language.

Foreigners living here can confirm this: as soon as a Dutchman notices that you are not a native speaker, he switches to English. Let's just speak English. A non-Dutch speaking parent in the app group of the children's party or at the parents' evening? In the blink of an eye, English is the official language.

You may think this is incredibly open and cosmopolitan of you, but in reality it is laziness presented as tolerance. You disguise the fact that you don't feel like taking a bit longer in a conversation, or lending a hand with a word or phrase - something English speakers themselves constantly have to do when another Dutchman comes along with his limited English.

Don't do it! There is no need for it! That is the signal we send out to foreigners who want to learn our language.

This attitude is also accompanied by a hefty dose of hypocrisy: with an American expat or a German office mate, we prefer not to speak Dutch, but if a status holder or an imported bride(egom) from a non-Western country does not speak our language or has poor command of it, this is considered a paragon of poor integration.

The ease with which the waitress announces that she does not speak Dutch can only continue because hardly anyone is surprised. I am - and on the terrace I stubbornly continue to speak Dutch. And do you know what? It usually goes surprisingly well.

Thijs Niemantsverdriet

Tom in London wrote:

I don't mind people speaking English with a foreign accent (many people do) but there's comprehensible and incomprehensible.

German Dutch Engineering Translation wrote:



How come that – as a 'foreigner' – I can understand it, with less command of English? And you don't?

Can you explain that?

Lingua 5B wrote:

I would rather ask: Why do people who don’t know how to teach effectively with the right methodology record training videos? I am not referring to the video Tom had reffered to (haven’t even watched it), just speaking generally. I saw many native English speakers do it. The answer is: because they have a Google acount, microphone and camera (the three things needed to become a YouTube producer).

Teresa Borges wrote:

I am a foreigner and most of the video is incomprehensible to me. I must say though that I also find the English spoken with some Irish, Scottish or Mancunian accents very difficult to understand. I am a huge fan of cooking shows and it took me a few years of watching Masterchef Australia to become used to their accent. I can’t say the same for New Zealand…

Jean Dimitriadis didn't write (I'm misquoting him):

this guy's English is so bad that he shouldn't make English videos

Jean Dimitriadis wrote:

This video is not about CafeTran...