For example, there’s the Cervantes institute to promote Spanish and the Goethe institute for German. He notices that the Dutch do not have an institute to promote their language, like many other countries in Europe. ‘But world languages come and go, it was Latin once, and Classical Chinese, and now it is English. ‘The English language has a linguistic stranglehold on people, there is no finer example of neo-imperialism, really’, says Austin.

It is not just Dutch that gets run over by English. They fear that financial motives are leading, and that universities just want more international students to come here, since they often pay more tuition fees. The way English is introduced to universities right now is hurried and improvident, they say. And that level, that is where we still have a problem.’Īccording to them, many teachers’ English is not good enough to give lectures.

But being prepared means that students are educated to a level that they can work with. For example, Jan Sinnige and Wesley van der Zande, chairman and board member Internationalisation at the ISO, a national student organisation, wrote in an opinion piece: ‘Of course, the market globalises and students have to be prepared for that. The university’s choice to only use English on its Facebook page, to start English bachelor programmes and communicate in English more and more, does not please everybody. On the other hand, it cripples me, because convenience breeds laziness.’ ‘In a way, of course, the fact that everybody speaks English here makes it easier for me, as I can take my time learning Dutch. Even though he is a native English speaker, he is not too thrilled about using English at the expense of Dutch. ‘Basically, nobody here expects me to learn Dutch.’ Austin Howard (22) is an American-British student, who came to Nijmegen for at least two years, to do a historical studies master. Do we need to teach internationals staff and students to speak Dutch? The university focusses on English for its main communication, but not everybody is happy with that. One of the hottest topics at Radboud University right now is language.

Stranglehold iso