EricLauderdale

Hello

You don't have a userpage, so I'm guessing that you are a resident of Curacao (or an American that visits there a lot). I've lived on the neighbouring island of Bonaire for several years, so I'm very familiar with Curacao. You'll notice that I've modified some of the additions that you've made. Some of them for purely technical reasons (like moving footnotes to where they belong), but the one about languages for problems of neutrality, factuality, and point-of-view.

First, the ability to speak four languages isn't unique to Curacao. Arubans and Bonaireans do quite nicely in the same four languages. Second, the average Antillean is not as proficient as they claim. Most of them speak Papiamentu perfectly. Their Dutch is quite good, but a little simplified compared to Netherlands Dutch. Each speaker tends to be quite good in either English or Spanish, but very few are truly fluent in both. In general, their Spanish tends to be a bit better than their English, but there are many exceptions. As an English speaker, I have to be very careful to speak slowly and clearly, and avoid idioms. If I don't, I am frequently misunderstood, and, out of pride, the listener tends not to admit that he didn't know what I meant. When I'm on Curacao, I find that I frequently have to drop back to my pidgin Dutch/Spanish/Papiamentu mishmash to be understood. No problem in tourist oriented places. but when I'm in areas with primarily local clientele, my reliance on English causes problems. When I owned a hotel on Bonaire, one of my biggest challenges was to find front desk staff that could really handle the phone in English and Spanish.Kww (talk) 14:51, 8 March 2008 (UTC)