Advanced Learners’ Use of Dutch Second Person Pronouns During Residence Abroad

The complex sociolinguistic system for Dutch forms of address presents students of Dutch as a foreign language with particular difficulties in learning to use second person pronouns appropriately. This article discusses the role of a period of residence in the Low Countries in advancing these students’ proficiency in this respect. The research is based on interviews with final-year students of Dutch in the UK. The analysis is framed in terms of intercultural communicative competence and approaches to learning.