pics

I imagine a lot has changed in that regard anyway, especially with the way mainstream politics has gone in the intervening years, but it does indeed sound like you lived in a bit of a bubble at the time too!

I’m probably falling into the habits I caught when living in Britain and using the word “excellent” to mean what people in other countries think of as “good”

I'm British, and I know the British tendency is to understate rather than overstate, so I don't know how you've landed there!

for areas with less demand...

That's why I expressly mentioned that it was because they don't learn Dutch: so you don't have to wonder if there were any confounding factors at play.

Dutch is easy (a relative term, admittedly) if your mother tongue's English because they're so closely related. Many basic words are either very similar or spelt the same but pronounced differently. Bit like what Spanish is to Portuguese. I think it's quite obvious that native speakers don't learn Dutch quickly, if at all, because they have no one to practise with, and perhaps the idea of switching languages being rude plays a part too. I've met a couple of people who think it's not worth it to learn and none of them were from the Anglosphere.