Katholieke Universiteit Nijmegen (KUN)

What I found a bit annoying was, that most foreign students didn´t even try to learn Dutch. A lot of them went to Nijmegen to learn English. University is offering free "social Dutch" courses, but in the first semester only for students who don´t know the language, yet, thus, it wasn´t really interesting for me. Looking forward to the "advanced" class which starts next month.

At the start of the year a Social Dutch course was offered to the international students. I took this course and found it very useful but there is very little need to speak Dutch in the Netherlands and in fact finding anyone willing to converse in your limited Dutch compared to their fluent English is near impossible, even when out shopping, asking directions etc.

My language skills improved because I had a constant contact with people from different countries and I could practice the language I learned in school with native speakers. It's a little embarrassing when you're not sure of your level, but helpful and fun because you learn not only the best pronunciation but also the slang.

I enjoyed learning Dutch, but I also had the opportunity to become fluent in French while I was there because I took French courses that were French only, and all explanations were in Dutch. But I had no problems with the people becuase all educated people in the Netherlands speak English.

Before my study stay I didn`t know anything about Dutch language. I had opportunity to learn this language, but I didn`t take a chance, because firstly I had a bit problem with communication in English. But at the end of my stay I learned some basic words from Dutch and of course I did great improving in English. Recently I am going to study to Belgium(Flemish part), so if I will have a chance to attend Dutch course, I want to take this.

The level of Enlgish spoken by the Dutch people is very high and most erasmus students also had a relatively good level of English. Because there were a lot of Spanish erasmus students I picked up some Spanish while I was there.