this post was submitted on 22 Mar 2024
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Stumbled upon this from another community, do you agree? (lemmy.world)
submitted 11 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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Source post: https://lemmy.world/post/13376939 [email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 11 months ago (9 children)

This is why expats in the Netherlands never learn Dutch even after years of living there. I know of people who lived in Amsterdam for 10 years and still don’t know any Dutch beyond “Hoe gaat het? Één stroopwafel alsjeblieft” the worst thing is that their kids who have spent most of their lives in the Netherlands don’t speak a lick of Dutch either, because these elitists send their kids to international school.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (2 children)

I hate the term expat. It’s completely made up to not be grouped with the not white immigrants. It also goes with the condescending attitude of not really wanting to integrate with their new country, such as your international school and not learning the language examples.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I think it has its place. There is a clear difference between someone coming to a country for a limited time to do some specialized work with the intention of leaving, compared to someone who has little or no intention of ever returning to their country of origin. Both categories are incompareble in the type of support they need (or want), where they live, whether they need to learn the language, etc. Just ignoring the difference is a bit silly.

Although I agree the term is misused sometimes.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/2015/mar/13/white-people-expats-immigrants-migration

There is definitely a distinction between expatriate and immigrant, but I have very very rarely seen it used properly. As the previous poster wrote, it really does feel like the main difference between an expat and an immigrant, colloquially, is the color of skin.

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