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Comment by nirvana | Hacker News Reader

No. And contrary to what others have said, more Germans know english than Dutch know english, on a day to day basis. Though you can get by without knowing dutch in amsterdam with a little creativity.

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Every educated Dutch person knows English. Even more than that - they willingly switch from Dutch to English when an international person joins the conversation. I can't say that I got the same impression about German people. They have very monolithic culture and it's not very open to foreigners.

So if you do not want to learn neither Dutch nor German you better move to Amsterdam than Berlin.

This is not what i experienced. I live in Germany, but i am quite often visiting the Netherlands. I was even able to speak to elderly people in English when i was lost in some small Dutch village.

Do you have any numbers to back that up? This site (http://www.nfia-india.com/why_english_speaking_society.html) says 62% vs 91% in favor of the Netherlands.

edit: seeing this guys profile/comments in this thread it's an obvious troll.

62% of the pop of Germany is more than 91% of population of Netherlands

Lies, damned lies and statistics ;)

On my experience, everyone in the Netherlands speaks English. I had problems getting by in Berlin and I know some basic notions of German (had to use English when that wasn't enough), English does NOT cut it, you need at least some basic German (maybe 1 or 2 months of studying).

Some Dutch words look like English words, and a lot of Dutch words are similar to German. So if you're an English-speaking expat in Amsterdam, learn German instead of Dutch (Goethe Institut is on Herengracht). Then you'll understand a bit of Dutch (though you don't have to since everyone speaks English), and you'll be all set when you move to Berlin later.

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