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> We chose our seats and waited, but the waiter was nowhere to be seen. > When he finally materialised, seemingly out of nowhere, he didn’t ask ‘What would yo
by tdons 9y ago
> We chose our seats and waited, but the waiter was nowhere to be seen.
> When he finally materialised, seemingly out of nowhere, he didn’t ask ‘What would you like to order’, or ‘What can I get you?’.
> He said ‘What do you want?’.
> Maybe it was the fact that he’d said it in English, or maybe he was just having a bad day, but I was shocked nonetheless.
This is a direct translation of the Dutch "wat wilt u hebben?" which is in fact rather polite. The above anecdote is just a case of a waiter who hasn't yet learned the nuances of English ("What do you want?" is something you'd say to someone bothering you)
> “I think the Netherlands are a place where… no-one is going to pretend.
> [For example], when you say something in a business meeting that is not a very smart suggestion, people will always point it out,” he said.
I'd say this is true.
> “You don’t talk too loudly on the train because it’s not too nice for the people in your compartment; you don’t play your music too loud in your apartment because it’s not so nice for your neighbours; there is this constant calibrating of your own behaviour,” Coates explained.
> But in the Netherlands, there is “the sense that people have the right to say whatever they want and be as direct as they want. And if other people don’t like that, it’s their fault for getting offended.”
This paragraph conflates being a decent and considerate human being with being direct. We (the Dutch) could do the former better, there's no excuse for being loud or noisy on a train and it has nothing to do with being direct.
> “You sit in a restaurant with a friend and they will happily, in a room full of strangers, talk quite loudly about their medical problems or their parents’ divorce or their love life.
> They see no reason to keep it a secret.”
I'd say this is true, I do this. I don't care what people around me think about me (but I do go out of my way not to inconvenience people.
> But Breukel disagrees with the premise that the Dutch don’t have taboo topics.
> “We don’t discuss salaries, we don’t discuss pensions.
Might be a generational thing, I do discuss this.
- photonios 9y agoA better example of directness in trains is the fact that people will come tell you to shut up when you're in the silent part of the train (the "stilte coupe"). I've noticed that in other cultures, people would silently judge people who violate that rule. In the Netherlands it happens more often than not that somebody will go tell a person to have another good look at the sign and shut up.
- usrusr 9y agoPlease find a way to package some of that into aid parcels and send some over your eastern border. Sincerely, a neighbor guilty of too much of that pointless silent judging
- JBlue42 9y agoSounds great honestly. My pet peeve is people playing music out or having calls on speakerphone despite the sound quality being terrible. Not just transportation but in general. People are pretty decent on trains here in LA, though they're terrible about sitting all over the stairs or staying to the right on an escalator. The British really have it down. Back in the day on the Tube it might be crowded and steamy but you could hear a pin drop.
- cr1895 9y ago>We (the Dutch) could do the former better, there's no excuse for being loud or noisy on a train and it has nothing to do with being direct. You'll readily hear one Dutch person tell another who's talking loudly in the quiet carriage of the train to hush up.
- pwagland 9y agoYes this! Just try talking in a "silent carriage" on the train. That said, on a non-silent carriage, unless the talk is offensive, people tend to live and let live in my experience.
- mcv 9y agoI witnessed a funny exchange in the train recently. We were not in a "silence" carriage, but for whatever reason, nobody was talking, except this one guy who was talking to someone on the phone about cars, among other things. Out of nowhere, an elderly lady cussed him out for his "dirty talk about cars" and his orange jacket. He told her quite bluntly to mind her own business because they weren't in a silence carriage, so he could talk all he wanted. She shut up, he continued talking, but a bit quieter this time. Everybody was happy. Mostly people tend to be fairly quiet and ignore other people while traveling, unless they already have a conversation partner.
- coffeeacc 9y agoa direct translation of the Dutch "wat wilt u hebben?" Although I'm not a Dutch speaker I'd suggest that would be "What will you have?".
- jjevanoorschot 9y agoYou're right, although to a non-native speaker these might be hard to distinguish. The Dutch are often praised for their ability to speak English, but in my experience nuances like these are often missed, making the Dutch come across more blunt than they actually are.
- mcv 9y agoThe Dutch are particularly good at translating Dutch idioms into really crappy English.
- Thiez 9y agoThat hits like a pliers on a pig. Now you are playing to the Dutch people the zwartepiet. We share selflessly with you the best parts of our amazing language and you look the given horse in the mouth! This is why we not the effort taken to learn you Dutch, because who not honors the small is not worth the big!
- thijsvandien 9y agoWhoever feels like having more of this can watch Louis van Gaal’s press conferences. :)
- thijsvandien 9y agoBeing Dutch I painstakingly avoid using proverbs when speaking English, to avoid saying anything ridiculous. Sometimes the literal translation is actually correct, but it makes me paranoid.
- pwagland 9y agoUnfortunately peanut butter I think you are right about that!
- mosselman 9y agoI also find the examples in this article a bit lacking in applicability to the subject. Not helping someone in the supermarket and being loud in the train have nothing to do with directness. However, I do believe they are Dutch traits as well (arrogance and unwillingness to serve). We have some of the worst waiters; our (Dutch people) views of equality as being one of the most important things in society, render us unable to serve people, or to be served by others in fact. There always is some awkwardness with regards to the position of the server and the person being served. That is also why we have resolved into over automating everything in restaurants and why most waiting staff are students. Compare this to countries like France and Italy where waiting is a true profession. In line with the 'people from Amsterdam are the most direct': I think "people from Amsterdam are the worst" is probably a more accurate statement. People who aren't from Amsterdam often state 'Amsterdam is a great city, too bad of all of those people who live there'.
- cr1895 9y ago>We have some of the worst waiters; our (Dutch people) views of equality as being one of the most important things in society, render us unable to serve people, or to be served by others in fact. There always is some awkwardness with regards to the position of the server and the person being served. I was once with an Icelandic friend who absentmindedly snapped while attempting to get a Dutch waiter's attention. While my friend meant nothing by it and certainly didn't intend to offend, he got a very direct "don't ever do that, I'm not your servant" rebuke from the waiter. The waiter's rebuke would never have happened in the US for example. If anything they might have apologized for being inattentive.
- Totoradio 9y agoSame thing would have happened in France for sure. I saw once a client whistle to get the attention of a waiter. The waiter didn't come, the restaurant owner did, asking (loudly) the client if she had lost her dog.
- donkeyd 9y agoWaiters in Amsterdam are really the worst. I lived there for a while and have become highly appreciative of friendly waiters, which are apparently quite normal in the Netherlands, just not in Amsterdam. Side note: De Bekeerde Suster in Amsterdam has friendly waiters. It's become my go to spot for that exact reason.
- prophet_ 9y agoI once went for the first time to visit a Dutch acquaintance and before I entered the bathroom for a shower I was asked "not to take a long shower because of the electricity costs." Dutch directness at its finest.
- jacquesm 9y agoDutch showers are as a general rule not electricity heated but gas, and those that are electricity heated have typically really old boilers that take forever to warm up, likely the host meant that they too would like a shower later.
- donkeyd 9y agoI am Dutch and I would also need a moment to process that request. I would never ask a guest to shower short because of the energy cost. Unless, of course, they stick around for a year and tend to shower for 2 hours each day. This is more about being frugal than being Dutch.
- dddw 9y agoalso Dutch frugality at its finest, very Calvinistic.
- jacquesm 9y agoThe 'what do you want?' example is simply a case of someone being unable to use the Dutch honorific 'U' in English substituting it correctly with 'you' since both 'jij' and 'U' map onto 'you'. Also, what I find more interesting is that the tourist automatically assumed the host spoke English, did so and then complained about the quality of the English, rather than to be appreciative of the fact that the serving staff spoke English (which almost everybody here does, but still, I'd be amazed to find a tourist that learned the language before making a trip).
- clu3l355 9y agoAs a tourist who has attempted to learn the language, I've been told to "please just speak English" nearly all of the times I've tried it (much to my dismay!)
- jacquesm 9y agoThe Dutch love to practice their English. At the same time, ignore the requests, unless there is an urgent need to get the message across. Otherwise you'll be forever stuck. Another good trick - usually this won't work if people know your background - is to say you don't speak English, that way at least you get some time in, which is the biggest factor in learning another language. And thank you for trying to learn the language of your destination, that alone should get you a lot of credit with the locals.
- drukenemo 9y agoAmsterdam is the problem. Too many foreigners and too little patience from locals to speak Dutch with someone who doesn’t speak it greatly. Only way is to move to another city. Source: I’m a foreigner in Amsterdam for seven years and don’t speak the language well.
- dddw 9y agokom naar Rotterdam, veel gezelliger