Universiteit Utrecht

Dutch for me seemed like a very difficult language. It took me more than a month only to start getting the pronounciation correct. However, in the Netherlands, everybody speaks english... (well most people do). You need to know dutch if you want to get a decent job though. If I wanted to find a job in my sector I had to know dutch if not I had to know 3 foreign languages! Oh, there are also a few jobs for speakers of the german language. Overall you do not need to speek the Dutch language in the Netherlands.

I had previous experience with the German language, and that helped me out a lot with understanding written and spoken language. I still cannot speak Dutch much at all, but I could a little bit if I had to, enough to get by. Take a class offered to you if you can. The Dutch love it if you at least try to learn their language. It was a problem sometimes, not to speak Dutch, but just about everyone in Holland speaks English fairly well, especially the students.

the language of instruction is English. i havelearned to read and write in English before learning to do so in my maternal language so that English is almost my native language. This is ideal in a country such as Holland. it is not merely a fairy tale, everyone there really does speak English (and many speak French as well). Considering, the discovery of a new language never a flaw, I prefered to go on exchange in a country where my main activities would be in English having the opportunity to learn a bit of a new llanguage such as Dutch.

I chose to do an exchange semester in the Netherlands mainly because I was informed that the language of instruction will be English. Considering the fact that English is the language of the international economics and politics, I was determined to take this chance and make a step towards a higher level of my language and communication skills. So I did - going to Utrecht. Today, I honestly can say, that I succeeded with that mission of mine.

the fact that the dutch language was not the teaching language at my university, it made it difficult for me to learn it. However, I took the dutch classes. The additional difficulty that restrained the learning process of the dutch language was the big difference of the latter with my native language (serbo-croatian) as well as all other foreign languages i speak.

I was forced to speak otherwise other people couldn't get the meaning of my thoughts!! As I knew many foreign people I've tried to "exploit" them, I tried to be a sponge, to learn all the words they used. I could speak French, Spanish and English with native speakers, it was great, laso for my prononciation!!