Bekenden die Nederlands geleerd hebben/Famous people who have learned Dutch

[evilbu]

Bieneke, sorry als het hier niet hoort.

Welke bekende mensen hebben Nederlands geleerd?

Ik kan al aan deze mensen denken :


Paul Bremer,tijdelijk leider van Irak, was in de jaren tachtig ambassadeur van de Verenigde Staten voor Nederland.


Louis Bonaparte, was de jongere broer van Napoleon, en werd door die laatste benoemd tot Koning van Holland (het huidige Nederland) in 1806 (de Zuidelijke Nederlanden(=het huidige België) werden gewoon deel gemaakt van Frankrijk met catastrofale gevolgen nadien).
Bij zijn aankomst noemde hij zichzelf "de Konijn van Holland".  Een foutje dus, maar het toonde dat hij dus wel degelijk Nederlands wou leren, en uiteindelijk trok hij zich zoveel van de Nederlanders aan dat zijn eigen broer hem afzette in 1810 en ook de Noordelijke Nederland gewoon opnam in het Franse Rijk.
Hij is ook de (vermoedelijke) vader van de latere keizer Napoleon III.


José Rizal, Filippijns intellectueel en held van de revolutie tegen Spanje.
Hij had kennis van Spaans, Frans, Latijn, Duits, Portugees, Engels, Italiaans, Japans en Nederlands!
Op 30 december 1898 werd hij terechtgesteld, en daardoor is 30 december nog altijd Rizal Dag op de Filippijnen.




Tegen monarchie ben ik altijd, maar deze kroonprinses Maxima van Nederland heeft wel zeer snel Nederlands geleerd.  Daar kunnen ze in België nog iets van leren.

Aan wie kunnen jullie denken?

[Quetzal]

John Milton. Op Wikipedia staat er: "At Cambridge, Milton tutored the American theologian Roger Williams in Hebrew, in exchange for lessons in Dutch."

En op de pagina van Joost van den Vondel wordt er bevestigd dat Miltons Paradise Lost inderdaad wel wat weg heeft van Vondels Lucifer, al zeggen ze erbij dat Miltons Nederlands waarschijnlijk toch niet goed genoeg was om het behoorlijk te kunnen lezen.

[evilbu]

Dasja Drugaleva might not be that famous, but she is the translator in Martin Heylen's program about his adventures in Siberia.
She is blond, about 23 years old and decided to study Dutch in Sint-Petersburgh.  When she came to Leuven, she was surprised to learn that Dutch in Flanders has that many variants.  :-o

An interview can be found in the last Humo, 349, from Tuesday 19 December 2006.

[Roland]

Nog een oud-ambassadeur: Sir Colin Budd (UK)



Spreekt met enig accent doch vloeiend Nederlands. Dit jaar opgevolgd in Den Haag.

[evilbu]

 :


Salvatore Adamo, a singer from Sicily, moved to Belgium.  He is more fluent in French and most of his songs are in French, but he did learn Dutch as well and he often gives interviews in Dutch.


Dyab Abou Jahjah, the Lebanese man who started the Arab European League.


Soekarno, the first president of Indonesia, a former Dutch colony, spoke Dutch and read many books in Dutch.



Robbie McEwen, married a Flemish woman with whom he now lives in Flanders.  He is very fluent in Dutch and always gives interviews in Dutch.

[Roland]

Adam Curry, American tv host and radio dj who moved to The Netherlands in the 70s. He speaks Dutch fluently and with no accent at all. He and his family (wife Patricia Paay and daughter) had a reallife soap on Dutch television called "Adam's Family".




Nelson Mandela, though his mother tongue is Afrikaans he was perfectly understood, after receiving a medal of honour in Amsterdam in 1999, by saying: "Ons stelt het baie op prijs om hier te wees", meaning "We stellen het zeer op prijs om hier te zijn."


 

Anni Friesinger is a German skater and quite famous and popular in The Netherlands. Her Dutch is fluent, on a conversational level. She has a relationship with former Dutch skater Ids Postma and plans to move to The Netherlands. During a race she is cheered on by Dutch supporters as one of their own.

[Bieneke]

Voltaire!

In het Nederlands geschreven brief Voltaire gevonden

(...)
Het briefje is een reactie op een vertaling in het Nederlands van Voltaires lofdicht op de Friese politicus Willem van Haren (1710-1768). De vertaling was van Pieter Anthony de Huybert van Kruiningen. Voltaire (1694-1778) verbleef tussen 1713 en 1743 vijf keer in Nederland, maar het was niet bekend dat hij het Nederlands zo beheerste dat hij in die taal schreef. Het briefje staat echter vol spelfouten, zoals omzicthicheid (omzichtigheid), neet (niet) en better (beter).
(...)

Link naar artikel

[BrutallyFrank]

Otto Martin von der Gablentz (Berlijn, 9 oktober 1930 – Amsterdam, 13 juli 2007) was een Duitse diplomaat. Hij was onder meer ambassadeur in Nederland, Israël en Rusland.

[Marco]

[Nelson Mandela, though his mother tongue is Afrikaans he was perfectly understood, after receiving a medal of honour in Amsterdam in 1999, by saying: "Ons stelt het baie op prijs om hier te wees", meaning "We stellen het zeer op prijs om hier te zijn."

Maybe a weird question, but are you sure his mother tongue is Afrikaans? Afrikaans is associated with the white elite and the black people - gosh, this always make me feel like I'm discriminating... - used English as a lingua franca and as the language that represented the oppressed, as they had like 10 languages of their own, such as Zulu, and therefore English had become the language which they were able to communicate with each other with, hence I doubt that Nelson Mandela was a native Afrikaans speaker, moreover as he was a member as the APC, and that movement/organisation propagated English as the language of the black people.  :)

[Ome Jorge]

Ik heb het maar even opgezocht. Mandela's moedertaal is het Xhosa.

Je kunt het hier lezen. http://www.lowani.nl/index.htm?xhosa.htm

Googlen met Xhosa en mother tongue levert een flink aantal hits op, dus het zal wel waar zijn.

Groet,

OJ

[Marco]

Bedankt voor het speurwerk, OJ!

[Bini]

Robbie McEwen, married a Flemish woman with whom he now lives in Flanders.  He is very fluent in Dutch and always gives interviews in Dutch.

That's interesting - do you know if he has a foreign accent when speaking dutch? I tried to find a video online but didn't have any luck.

[Quetzal]

Robbie McEwen, married a Flemish woman with whom he now lives in Flanders.  He is very fluent in Dutch and always gives interviews in Dutch.

That's interesting - do you know if he has a foreign accent when speaking dutch? I tried to find a video online but didn't have any luck.

He does, but it's become fairly slight by now. You can still hear he's a native speaker of English, and if you're good at English accents you might even be able to tell he's Australian from hearing him speak in Dutch, but he's quite fluent and has less of an accent than most foreigners (and 95% of Francophone Belgians, I might add), nowadays.

I would imagine McEwen is a lot more famous and popular in Belgium than in Australia, for that matter... I think it's safe to say no country in the world is as cycling-crazed as Belgium (well, Flanders, really, Wallonia is a lot less so even though many of the most important Belgian cycling races are in Wallonia), and McEwen is generally considered an adopted Fleming.

[Bini]

Yes I had never heard of him before but a quick search shows he is known in Australia in the sporting communities - I'm just not much into sports. Good to know Australians can become fluent at Dutch anyway

Though I do have to question the naming of one of his children. Ewan McEwen? Seriously?!

[Quetzal]

Yes I had never heard of him before but a quick search shows he is known in Australia in the sporting communities - I'm just not much into sports. Good to know Australians can become fluent at Dutch anyway

Though I do have to question the naming of one of his children. Ewan McEwen? Seriously?!

An Australian who's not much into sports? Those exist?

And yeah, you know, if you spend ten years of your life - or more, by now - almost entirely immersed in a language, with a wife who speaks it, friends who speak it, most of your colleagues, your neighbours, the television, etc., you'll become fluent in it no matter how hard it is, and Dutch is not that hard for someone speaking English (compared to many other languages, anyway).

Ewan McEwen is indeed a bit over the top... I guess he really must have liked the name.