Americans Abroad

And in a country like NL, there will be plenty of expat groups because foreigners are so often reluctant to learn the language. When it was clear that we were going to open an office in NL, I asked our first guy there to speak to me slowly in Dutch until I could grasp his meaning. Since he was from the far north, his native language wasn’t standard Dutch, so he spoke it clearly and distinctly, which helped me greatly. Now, I don’t speak anything BUT Dutch when I’m there, and the only foreigners I see regularly are our accountant, who is from Peru (she married a Dutch guy, speaks fluent NL) and a trainee from Romania who has to speak English to everyone, as he hasn’t learned any NL at all. I’m accepted by everyone as a sort-of foreigner, but “almost” one of them.