Eliot's Travels

Dutch Expressions and Language Customs

There's a couple of phrases that you hear a lot here when speaking English with people. The wording is different than you expect in the context of the conversation.

"It is possible" - that actually means yes. If you ask a postal worker, for example, if you can send a package to the US.
"It's OK" - also means yes. It is always used differently than I expect. Usually, it's given for a yes or no question.
When the Dutch talk, they use a lot of "ja" when conversing; it's like confirmation of what people are saying.

Everyone speaks English in the Netherlands. It would be a mistake to assume that those around wouldn't understand your English conversation. Numerous times, I have had people, especially older folks, speak to the kids in English after they heard us speaking English. Most people will say they don't speak English very well, but often (like Eliot's teacher or the customer service people at Eneco) the whole conversation happens in English. We also had the opposite situation, where everyone spoke Dutch to us. Of course, that is the language of the Netherlands and we did look quite like the Dutch (though I don't think that changed their interactions with us). It took me months to even realize that they were talking to me. I simply responded that we don't speak Dutch.

It's interesting because everyone speaks English here, but it is not a bilingual country (our landlord first pointed this out to me). Unlike the US, where government information is sent in English and Spanish and sometimes other languages, anything official is in Nederlandse (Dutch). All of the customer service automated phone systems are in Dutch too. We always had to rely on a friend to call and figure out which numbers to press to get a to person, who would always be able to help us in English.

There was one other funny thing that both Jim and I did with the Dutch language. You know how when you don't speak the language, it all sort of runs together. I remember Gina telling me websites to look at and hearing commercials that gave website addresses too. There was always this strange ending. I kind of just zoned out. One day I realized they were saying "punt nl." Think dot.com: www.whatever.nl. Duh! It took us 3 or 4 months to catch that one!

posted by Whitney @ 4:43 AM