Netherlands Four - Text
The subject is a an artist, male, born 1961 in Veldhoven, Noord-Brabant. The sample wass contributed by Geraldine Cook, IDEA's Associate Editor for Australia.
Recorded January, 2006. Edited by Paul Meier August 5, 2007. Running time: 06:30
Transcription of Unscripted Speech
[Interviewer]: Um, when did you start learning English?
[Netherlands 4]: Um...at the age of 12. So, we, in the Netherlands uh, it's when we go to secondary school, or high sch--is that high school, I think? And now I'm telling this it might have been even in the last class of primary school. It was a selected group of us who were thought to go to a specific kind of high school, and then I think...yeah, then--but then--it's--it's around my 12th year, yeah, yeah.
[Interviewer]: So how many years have you been speaking English altogether?
[N4]: Since then? 'Bout...
[Interviewer]: That's what, 20 years?
[N4]: And now 45?
[Interviewer]: Yeah so 30, 30 years.
[N4]: Yeah, but originally I was far more into German which was by coincidence in a way because...I started theology and philosophy in--I started theology and philosophy in Nijmegen, and that University was--part-partly because it's close to the German border um, but also because of my--most of my teachers it was..quite a lot of German..language, or German philosophers and--and theologists that I had to read, and I had a few German professors. And actually I like German language a lot so...I didn't work a lot on my English it is only since the last... 10 years or something that I concentrated--or focused more on and worked a little bit more, partly because I started to perform myself, I--I at first I was more like a director in the last 10 years I focused more on telling my own stories. And we were invited a few times to come to Edinburgh and--and--and play around in Europe and then we decided let's not translate it in any kind--in different languages but only in English, so I took some lessons and then. And since then and then I worked in DasArts in Amsterdam, which is quite an internationally uh, based or..organized institution so...and then I well, I started liking it as well of course. I'm together with your colleague Richard Murford. I was invited to mentor, and in a way also direct um, a project...um, which uh, the initiative had to do with the fact that Australia and the Netherlands celebrate 400 years of...well, relationships, so that's a little bit exaggerated because it had to do with the fact that this small Dutch vessel called the Duyfken ended up at the shores of Western Cape, York 400 years ago, and it is said to be the first, at least documented uh, moment in which non-Australians started mapping this continent, and that was only found out recently I think because, everyone always tells that Captain Cook uh, discovered Australia. Um, the two institutions, so DasArts in Amsterdam, and the Victorian College of the Arts uh, organized a collaboration project, partly based on this historical event. So I've been here a few times over the past 2 years to uh--to prepare the project, and the last 3 months to..mentor it, or try to mentor it because it was a tough *laughs* clash of cultures and backgrounds and disciplines and.. But um, so that's what I've been doing uh, uh partly inspiring and challenging the participants partly uh, group dynamics *laughs* partly uh, stress management and things like that.
Unscripted Speech Transcribed by Faith Harvey 20 March 2008