How useful is the Dutch language?

I cannot recommend it, but besides also Flanders there are some unicorns in Indonesia, Australia and New Zealand as well. Although they are all going to die soon.

And the Carribean, such as Aruba and Curacao.

The busiest port in Europe is Rotterdam. The second busiest Antwerp.

Oh snap, my soft drink and coconut suppliers. How could I forget about them?

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The thing is many Dutch corporations have outgrown our country. We have many multinationals here that these days are only half Dutch. This has been the case ever since our country was founded.

In some ways its annoying because we can't get a grip on corporations that are bigger than ourselves. And it's more than likely that those corporations would run us instead. I mean, if Shell, ING or Unilever snaps its fingers our government bends over. But it does give us an excessive amount of influence over what happens in the world.

>This has been the case ever since our country was founded.

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For what it's worth it's more spoken than Swedish, Norwegian and Danish combined, and is the third most commonly spoken language in first world countries behind German and English

Meds and Japs are also somewhat first world though.

it's really useful where i live if you ever plan to work in tourism, most of the tourists we get are either dutch or brits, and dutch speakers are highly sought after as it's always nice for people to be able to speak in their own language.

do you live in nice? i'm going there this summer

That's because that was funded by the Dutch government

Nah, they just had a huge trade volume. Bigger than the rest of Europe combined. The corporation also owned Indonesia and South Africa. So they basically were a nation by itself. (While the American colonies were owned by the WIC).

The Dutch east india company (VOC) also had the right to make treaties, declare war and apply criminal laws and so on.

It's a bit like if all American oil companies would start to invade the middle east and claiming that land.

How did you lose South Africa?

So it is basically a company with it's own government

When Napoleon invaded the Netherlands, the UK invaded South Africa.
When Hitler invaded the Netherlands, Japan invaded Indonesia.

But you got Indonesia back.

What I don't understand is that the Netherlands only gave SA to Britain during the Napoleonic occupation.

So why didn't you get it back when you were free from the occupation?

emmajeen ew speec eankleage liek zees. zaat vot dahtsch beisiklee eez

ew gahees oondehrstaand woot eyem seyn?

veersteeen sieee mik niet?

Sort of. It was ruled by 17 chiefs from six houses, which were from different cities in the Netherlands. Each house had its own ships. But over time the ruler of the Netherlands also became the CEO of the Dutch East India Company. So there was no such thing as a separation of powers.

It also had its own military. And governments in the colonies were controlled by the Dutch East India Company.

Slavery for example was illegal in the Netherlands. And if you had a slave in the Netherlands he would be a free man after 30 days. But in the colonies it was perfectly legal because the company made the rules there.

>And if you had a slave in the Netherlands he would be a free man after 30 days
This rule was so that ships were able to pass through our harbors with slaves. But not import slaves here.

>But you got Indonesia back.
Sort of. When the Japanese left Indonesia had a power vacuum, because the Dutch people had been in Japanese camps. And when we tried to restore order, because white people were getting attacked by rebels, a brutal guerrilla war ensued between our order troops and the rebels. The world didn't approve of that war and turned against us. After which we granted them independence.

I don't know the exact details of how South Africa was taken over though.

Well why didn't you get go against the British in the Boer wars to get South Africa back?

You know we can't just go to war with the British over a foreign country over a conflict that we aren't involved in right.

Well, assuming you were the last person who I replied to,
Everyone in the Netherlands including Queen Wilhemina was pro Boer right?

Yeah. We have fought many wars against the British and won the majority. But during those times we a bigger navy than the British.

When the boer wars happened we didn't have a large military. And the UK is a country that's almost 4 times our size. So you can't just declare war on them without being ready for it. Especially when you don't have a direct interest in the conflict.

I believe we also followed a policy of neutrality. Which also kept us out of WW1 a few decades later.

Almost everyone who speaks Afrikaans in South Africa/Namibia speaks English

Afrikaans is actually bigger as a native language in South Africa than English.

But you had about 2000 volunteers.

I mean, didn't your queen want any diamonds?

A monarch already is infinitely rich. They mostly care about stability.

Well, I am just surprised that the Duch east company didn't want to monopolize diamonds

Indonesia is four times the size of Germany. And it had oil and rubber. And agriculture and spices. You also want to maintain that. A war would also put that at risk.

Good point, Finn

But that would also means the chance to get Malasia.
And aren't you forgetting the HNLMS Prins Hendrik der Nederlanden

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We weren't standing still there. We were already expanding.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aceh_War

why learn a dialect

Oh, so you already were at war already, so you couldn't use Koning der Nederlanden either I guess

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It is closer to English than Germany, Hans

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>Brainlet
>Oh, so you already were at war already,
Checks out

We're always having fun somewhere.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch–Venezuelan_crisis_of_1908

But I'm going to bed. So good night mate.

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Good night, Frank