Being born Dutch there are many advantages into learning it. I don't think I could've not learned English while being brought up in the circumstances that I was. However, having said that. I think a lot of native speakers could see all kinds of phrasing mistakes. Last year I learned that I secretly translate Dutch to English without knowing it. It's either that or my Dutch and English are really intertwined.

1. Subtitled videos from the day you are born. And when I was young, cartoons were subtitled as well, now they're dubbed and that doesn't help.

2. Digital games do not have a Dutch option in most cases. Other often used languages are: French, German, Spanish and English. What are you going to choose? I suppose the language that people speak during those subtitled movies: English!

3. The Dutch internet is not the biggest place and clearly lacks information. Want more information? Learn English. My gateway drug was when Dragonball Z was on air and I was 12. The Dutch websites were 6 months behind the English websites. I read all the spoilers, I loved it.

4. Being part of an international community helps such as HN. I did that for several communities, but this is not a seperate principle per se, it is a consequence of #3.

5. We had English at school! However, that helped just as much as French and German, i.e. not really.

6. Compared to American accounts that I read, Dutch people take quite a bit of vacation, at least once per year. The family I was raised in definitely did that and Europe is so small that if you goo 200 miles / 320 kilometers in the right direction you are in another country or you passed several countries already. Can't speak the main language? Speak English, because most countries are influenced by good ol' Hollywood.

7. What nailed it for me was tertiary education. Studying computer science meant that some teachers would ask if they could speak in English. In some cases, I even asked the teacher to do that. I'd rather listen to pretty good English compared to horrible Dutch, and who cares about Dutch anyway in the global economy?

(I know it sounds rude but the difference between some teachers their English and Dutch was really big, you clearly could notice that they didn't learn the language after years of living here. Moreover, they didn't care, and I couldn't blame them. Their teaching dramatically improved and imposing those teachers to speak Dutch by university management was obligatory in a legal sense. It was also silly.)

7+. This effect was even stronger in my master degrees, since they have English as the main language. I was so happy with how many international people were in my classes.

8. Oh, realizing that I am a part of the world that knows a language that is more or less useless outside of my own country (yea, Flanders, former colonies and 16 million traveling Dutchies but whatever, they all speak English as well).

9. Last but not least: the Dutch language is related to English which makes learning easier.

Edit: and then I went on.

10. Being in a relationship with an English native speaker, who happens to be Dutch ethnically (and learned Dutch from her parents). It taught me a lot more nuance regarding emotional words. I thought I knew English but the intuitive cultural nuance is not something I learn by only living in The Netherlands. I'd need to live in a native English speaking country for that.

11. Picking for a style: I choose Californian American English. It's not that my accent sound like it, but when in doubt to pick a formal style that is my style. Most talks and online seminars that I watched came from that placed and influenced me when I was 16 to 17.

12. Asking teachers if I can write my essays in English, in my bachelor degree. I do this for 2 reasons: 1. I learn English better. 2. I noticed some teachers were worse in English than me, so when they graded me, I had the language advantage.

13. When I was very young and on vacation I wasn't very shy to adults. I would have conversations with them and if I didn't know a word I'd run back to my parents to ask and then run back to the conversation.

14. I wanted to learn English.

15. Being young helps, I was 7.

-- For a Dutch person, I think my story is quite common.