I’m a big fan of Dutch comic artist Ype Driessen. I find his work funny, relatable and intelligent. When I read that his photo comic novel “Het Nadeel van de Twijfel” had been put onto the US and UK market in an English translation, I immediately asked him for an interview! Ype Driessen – the…
Categorie: interview
Once a month, I interview someone who lives or works on the boundary between Dutch and English.
Scroll down to read the latest one, or click on the subject that interests you the most:
An English tour guide who shows visitors his Dutch home town.
A Dutch actor who has an English one-man show in Amsterdam.
An English communications specialist who teaches English presentation skills to Dutch speakers from the Netherlands and Belgium.
This translator has autism: “When you are speaking in a second language, the emotions don’t hit as hard.”
Anouschka Schutte (52) is twice a translator: a translator between languages, but also a translator between the autistic and the non-autistic world. She calls herself an autism translator. I asked her about her work, languages, and of course I asked her for tips. What can language teachers do to make their autistic students happier and more…
Communication skills trainer Katie Challans: “I can tell a Dutch person from a Belgian person by their body language.”
Katie Challans (69) is co-owner of Challans & Faber Business Communications. Though she could have been retired by now, she has chosen to continue her work in event design and organisation, personal effectiveness and time management training, and conference organisation. Her main passion, however, is teaching communication skills. Based in Brussels, Katie does not only…
This Dutchman has a successful one-man show in English. What is his secret?
Jaap Vriend (45) is a man of many talents. He provides communication skills seminars, trains works councils (= ondernemingsraden) in English, and he does public speaking about happiness. Apart from all that, Jaap also stars in his own one-man theatre show about the history of Amsterdam: When Anne Frank met Rembrandt. In English! It was…
10 tips for speaking English to visitors, from a native-speaker tourist guide
Nigel Saych is a former teacher from England who guides tourists through the Dutch village of Nuenen and tells them all about Dutch cultural icon Vincent van Gogh. He is also my former boss and a good friend. I decided he would make a great first interviewee for my series about how Dutch culture interacts…