Tanit wrote:

Floxflow wrote: does anyone have other questions, things about Holland!?? Yes, I do! I've been to The Netherlands twice. I visited Amsterdam, Utrecht, Den Haag, but also the SW (Hengelo, Delden) and the NW(Groningen) part of the country. I've also been to Madurodam. My question has to do with the name "Holland". In Italian, we sometimes call your country "Paesi Bassi" (The Netherlands), but we usually say "Olanda" (Holland). I spent last year in the UK, where a British teacher of mine (who knows your country and Dutch people much better than I do!) recommended saying "The Netherlands" instead of "Holland" because - he said - the former is the name of the whole country, while the latter is the name of a province. However, I see both you and a Dutch relative of mine call it "Holland". What's your opinion? Thanks!

Thanks tanit, that's a very good question!!

I like the netherlands better, it's the official name (we call it Nederland), but when we are talking to foreign people we say Holland because more people know what we are talking about, foreign people use Holland the most, we just adjust at that. 

Holland is indeed a province, actually there are two provinces, Zuidholland (southholland, i live here) and noordholland (northholland).

Then we have a couple more provinces: Zeeland, Brabant, Groningen, Limburg, Utrecht, Overeissel, Drenthe, Friesland, Gelderland, Flevoland, Zuid-holland and Noord-holland

Den Hague is a beautiful city isn't it? I study there and i like it a lot. Amsterdam is also a very nice city but very much focused on tourists when you ask me.

The dutch colonised my country until they lost our country to Japan in 1942.  We fought for our independence in 1945.  After our independence and the end of world war II, the dutch wanted their colony back, so we fought for our independence until 1949.

There are so many old people who speak Dutch here, and we have so many Dutch words in our language.  Many of our students still go to netherlands to take their master or PhD.

We have a lot of movies about our fights with The Dutch. In those movies all of  The Dutch are our enemies.  When I was a child I used to play "Indonesian fighters vs Dutch Army".   

I have to say sorry to all of Ducth people here that we use The Dutch to maintain our National sense of belonging. he..he..he..he..he..he..he..he..he....