Quote:
Originally Posted by Legate of Amon Lanc
So that makes the folks from Amsterdam and Brussels the biggest Tolkien fans... or the most unfaithful to their nationality  |
Or extremely proficient anglophones. Unsurprisingly given that Dutch is so closely related to English, Netherlanders tend to speak English very well. Brussels is a very cosmopolitan because of the European organisations based there.
and I believe both countries were able to receive BBC broadcasts before technology made it more widely available. However the sad fact is for Tolkien's home country is that the English are notorious with regards to language learning and are unlikely to get better in the near future. On the continent it seems usual for anyone of university level education to have a working knowledge of at least one MFL...