‘I never felt like more of an immigrant than when I was sitting in Dutch class. After a long day of university and work, you still show up there. It’s dark outside and you’re conjugating verbs’, says Ezsther Bujáki from Hungary. She recently completed her bachelor’s degree in psychology at Leiden University.

Bujáki is just one of over 122,000 international students who were studying in the Netherlands in 2022. At Leiden University, they made up 23% of bachelor’s students and 36% of master’s students in 2023.

High levels of English proficiency make the Netherlands an attractive place to study. It might not stay that way. In the current political climate, international students are blamed for everything from the housing crisis to the degradation of the Dutch language, and the government is working to reduce the number English-taught university programs. Despite this, international students are still taking steps to integrate through language learning.

‘From the moment I moved there, I had an ambition to learn Dutch’, says Slovakian Boris Bielik, who just finished his bachelor’s degree in psychology. ‘They told us that we would hit the ground running when it comes to university, and we really did. My learning was stop and start, but there moments where I had more capacity, and I would learn a bit more.’

For PhD candidate María Negre Rodríguez from Spain, the widespread use of English helped her settle. ‘At the beginning, it’s amazing’, she says. After a while, she wanted to be able to talk to her neighbours. ‘At Leiden University, you’re in a bubble because everyone speaks English. But it’s nice not to force people to speak English. Learning Dutch means I can understand the everyday things like, ‘hey, how are you?’’

More than just language

‘I think you can live in the Netherlands without knowing the Netherlands’, says Bielik. Learning Dutch expanded his circle. ‘You get to see beyond academia and the people who speak English very well. At my work [at McDonald’s], there were people from many different backgrounds, and I could talk to them and hear their views on work and life.’

Rodríguez expressed a similar sentiment. ‘I feel like you cannot get to know all the culture unless you understand the language.’ For her, it’s also about identity. ‘I know that if I speak English, I’m a different person than when I’m speaking my own language [Spanish].’

Rodríguez also noticed that not everywhere is as English-friendly as Leiden. ‘I have a car, so I’ve been travelling around the Netherlands. If you go to Amsterdam, it’s similar to if you go to Barcelona or Madrid. They are used to people from everywhere. If you go to a smaller town, it’s more unusual for people to speak English, and I feel awkward to not know how to communicate.’

Making Dutch friends was an important part of learning the language for Anthony Zhang from China who recently received his master’s in computer science. ‘I asked my Dutch friends to speak Dutch in front of me. In the beginning you don’t understand anything because they talk really fast and use a lot of slang.’ But he was slowly able to understand and respond. ‘It’s a process’, he remarks with a laugh. He’s come a long way in a year of self-teaching. ‘If I get mail or need to email my landlord, I don’t have to use a translation app.’

Bielek benefitted from living in a student house with 17 Dutch flat mates. ‘I was the only international in the house’, he says. This meant that he always had someone he could ask when questions about grammar inevitably came up.

Bujáki had a more difficult time connecting with those who could answer her language questions. ‘I knew one girl who grew up in the Netherlands, but she was the only one that I could practice with. I never had genuine Dutch connections.’ The difficulty she had making Dutch friends worries her when she thinks about living here long-term. ‘I don't feel like it's going to be possible for me to integrate fully, even if I speak the language.’

expensive courses

Formal courses are one way to learn a language, but the cost can be a barrier. ‘It’s true that the Dutch course is really expensive’, says Rodríguez. Even with the discount for Leiden University students and staff, a 12-week course from the Academic Language Centre costs over €200. More intensive courses are more expensive.

Rodríguez sees paying for the course as an investment. When asked whether the university would pay for it, she responded, ‘I didn’t ask my principal investigator because we are all international in the group.’

Costs of classes aside, Bielek notes that the university does little to motivate international students to learn Dutch. In years prior, this made sense. International students, particularly those from outside the European Union are a cash cow for universities here. With the current political climate, language has suddenly become a much larger issue.

According to Bielik, ‘In other countries, you get credits for studying language. Which is nice because you get rewarded for learning a language. Here, learning Dutch is something extra that is independent of your study and workload.’

For Bujáki, the extra load meant long evening classes at NLtraining a language school in Leiden. Fortunately for her, they were free through a program at the Leiden municipality. ‘It was super intense. But then I also felt like the luckiest person ever because it was such a small group, and I couldn’t believe they chose me to be there.’

‘I had to go through the woods to find the school’, says Bujáki about her class at NLtraining. ‘We had lectures about how to sign up for exams, but we never had a lecture about learning Dutch or integrating more into society. If you had questions, they would help you, but it wasn’t something they advertised.’

Bielek believes ‘it's in the best of interest for the Netherlands as a country to motivate people to learn Dutch. You’re much more likely to stay because you're much more likely to feel embedded in society.’

biggest barrier

Despite this, he wouldn’t want mandatory Dutch classes. ‘I don’t like to be pushed into stuff on those terms’, he remarks. ‘I think learning a language is curiosity and fun-driven process. But once you kill the fun and curiosity, it’s just a thing you have to do.’

Bielik is currently in Spain volunteering with European Solidarity Corps. He looks back on his time in the Netherlands with fondness. ‘I think the biggest barrier for people to learn Dutch is whether they are going to live in the Netherlands long term. I still don’t know the answer to this. But I know that it was beneficial to me.’

Rodríguez will stay in the Netherlands for at least four years to finish her PhD. She is in the early stages of learning Dutch. ‘For now I only know the small things, like greeting the guard in the university building, but it's those things that make me happy’, she says.

Zhang would like to stay in the Netherlands and is looking for a job. ‘I like the life here. And the work-life balance here is quite good’, he says. He recently passed the State Exam Dutch as a Second Language.

Bujáki is taking a gap year but is hopeful about returning to the Netherlands for her master’s to continue her journey towards becoming a clinical psychologist. ‘Even if I decide to move away at the end of my master’s, learning Dutch won’t have been a waste of time.’

For each of the students, learning Dutch was a conscious choice. According to Bielik, it’s a choice that often comes down to a question: ‘Do you want to be comfortable, or do you want to learn? Sometimes, like after a shift at McDonald's, it's OK to take the comfortable path. But sometimes you just need to learn.’