One of things that truly makes you feel like a foreigner is when you begin to talk in sign-language to people. Take, for example, our often-visited Turkish joint. Making signs explaining single words like: less, more, spoons, how-many¹ to the person across the counter has become a routine task.

As one of the bank employees said to me, with a wry smile: “In England, they have it in English. Here, it is in Dutch.” This, when I asked him why the options in the ATM menu were all in Dutch and that I couldn’t make a head or tail of it². It goes without saying, I tried each button, so I now know what each one does.

1. Withdraw cash.
2. Account balance / information.
3. Deposit cash.

It is a similar story in a shopping mall. I fail to distinguish between a service counter and a cash counter. The person on the other side tells me: “Do you want to buy this? Yes? Then please go to that counter.”

This phenomenon, I noticed, is not restricted to the real world alone. Most Dutch websites do not have an English version³. To them, English is just any other European language. They do not seem to acknowledge that it might be considered as a universal language in communication⁴, thanks to the internet.

Not to be left alone at that, the “intelligent” web sites think I am Dutch, simply because I am accessing the site from within the Netherlands. And they serve all content in Dutch. I eventually end-up using either commands like these, or a translator plugin.

After the web sites, it is now the turn of the hardware. Take those debit-card⁵ swipe machines located near the Check-out counters and they’re in Dutch⁶. I just note the word PIN, followed by a confirmation to the amount billed with a “Ja” (spell J as Y), and I am done.

My work machine keyboard acts funny, even though I have English language turned on as default. For a double quote to appear, I have to first press the key followed by a space bar, or else it won’t appear. There’s also something in my work machine that is softwired to Dutch, and I often notice things that are non-English. And so it goes on.

Some bare necessities (For everything else, there’s a dictionary and a plugin):

• Zoek — Search
• Voor Huur — For Hire (For Rent)
• Te Koop — Buy
• Kip — Chicken
• Kinderen — Children
• Makelaar — Broker (Real estate agent)
• Contant geld — Cash

1. We use fingers. Thanks goodness, for the numbers do not exceed them, or else we would be carrying a notepad! [←]
2. I have pressed a button meant for depositing cash, when I really wanted to withdraw, a few times more than I should have :). [←]
3. Not all sites are so gloriously designed to suffix a command to the web address and get it in the language you want. [←]
4. Probably because their native language suits them well, even if they exhibit excellent English language skills. [←]
5. I am told that they hardly use cheque books here in Holland. Everything is paid either online or using credit / debit cards. [←]
6. Hell, no, I am not complaining, I am more like, if it isn’t in English, I might as well learn some Dutch. [←]

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