I wonder. In my world, almost everyone I know is bilingual and I would not have met them and worked with them otherwise. So many of my coworkers are from countries where English is not required but they were fortunate to pick it up as a 2nd language for one reason or another and now work in a high paying company that requires English.

Still, I get, over all, the number is small. They could have all had a different career in their native language.

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melvinroest 19 hours ago | parent [-]

Knowing English as a second language and Dutch as a first language is different than knowing, for example, Dutch as a second language and English as a first.

I know people in both camps. I have more respect for English speakers learning Dutch than for Dutch speakers learning English. Even though I respect both. But the simple truth is: there's a lot of incentive to learn English. There is not a lot of incentive to learn Dutch.

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ido 18 hours ago | parent [-]

Also, as an aside: Dutch is probably the closest language to English (aside from very minor or no longer spoken languages).

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zofer12 17 hours ago | parent [-]

no, not really, dutch are close to german. Spanish is closer to english, than dutch.

	▲	xattt 14 hours ago \| parent [-]
		The Foreign Service Institute has a language difficulty rating, based on the first language of a speaker, to estimate the number of class hours needed to achieve fluency in English. Learning English from Dutch is 24-30 weeks whereas from German is 36 weeks. I am assuming some degree of reciprocity but maybe not. (1) https://dlsdc.com/blog/fsi-language-difficulty/