Where Dutch directness comes from
bbc.com
bbc.com
> 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.
> “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.
> “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.”
> “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.”
> But Breukel disagrees with the premise that the Dutch don’t have taboo topics.
> “We don’t discuss salaries, we don’t discuss pensions.
Sincerely, a neighbor guilty of too much of that pointless silent judging
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.
You'll readily hear one Dutch person tell another who's talking loudly in the quiet carriage of the train to hush up.
Mostly people tend to be fairly quiet and ignore other people while traveling, unless they already have a conversation partner.
Although I'm not a Dutch speaker I'd suggest that would be "What will you have?".
But the phrase "What do you want?" is the closes normal translation, not counting the politeness forms.
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'.
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.
Side note: De Bekeerde Suster in Amsterdam has friendly waiters. It's become my go to spot for that exact reason.
Dutch directness at its finest.
And thank you for trying to learn the language of your destination, that alone should get you a lot of credit with the locals.
In Denmark there’s the same sort of experience by foreigners, and I’ve heard it happens in Germany as well.
The situation is that in the local language, there’s a lot subtlety that simply gets lost in translation.
You can probably throw a little culturally bluntness on it as well, but the majority is down to translation.
For your argument to hold, the Dutch (or Danish or Germans) should be perceived as more polite when speaking English, yet they aren't.
Either this or they all speak bad English (which is unlikely due to speaking other Germanic languages and getting 50% of their colloquial American English via Netflix and/or Hollywood)
That is really, really different from what failure means in everyday English, which is much closer to 'somebody didn't succeed due to a neglect of duty'. I usually regret the times I use the word failure in conversation, because in my head it has come to mean something that is really quite mild. I typically can't convey that to a normal listener if I reflexively slip it into a conversation.
Maybe a literal translation from another language loses subtlety and becomes harsher following a similar principle? Each word has a range of meanings, and the closest word in a different language won't ever quite cover the same ground.
However, at least in the case of the Dutch, there is more to it than that. The Dutch have no problems saying "that's not right" whether they say that in Dutch or English, that particular phrase translates to the same thing (Dat klopt niet vs that's not right). And they have no problems (in general) saying that to a stranger, their boss, or their subordinate.
The only case I could come up with is Indians. But maybe that's just my experience with cheap outsourcing...
I agree developers may use "failure" or just boolean predicates ("That statement is false!") in a very exact way that may be perceived rude.
But I believe that issue is orthogonal to the directness of the Dutch. Still, beware Dutch developers until we sorted this out ;-)
That'd be true if they were just missing polite words in their languages. Yet the difference is in wording, not in politeness of wording.
I'm no Dutch, but in my native tongue "what do you want?" is perfectly fine and polite question. Where're less polite variations too. "What would you like to order" is not unheard of. But "what can I get you?" would sound totally out of place.
Meanwhile we have 2 different words for "you" - polite and not. Which is lost in translations.
Just because you speak another language does not mean you assimilate the culture. The word "please" is easy to translate - but I have to remember to be more cordial and remember to use it. It does not come naturally in my own tongue.
Things do get lost in translation.
I absolutely loathe the amount of "sorry for your inconvenience" in each and every communication with american support staff. To my ear it sounds insincere. But I do appreciate the fact that it would sound impolite to an american user if left out.
Being polite is not in the words themselves but how they're used. And to my mind that is predicated on culture.
Same in France. As a French, I hate the "merci pour votre compréhension". It drives me crazy because this is such an empty sentence.
I wouldn't say bad, but I would say it is often spoken without the nuance of a native speaker. In my experience Dutch peoples' English is strongly influenced by Dutch.
The Dutch will tell each other if they don't like someone's shoes, if they should have prepared better for a meeting, if you wouldn't mind keeping it down, etc.
Belgians wouldn't dream of telling someone on the train to keep it down (we'll just stare disapprovingly and hope for the best), while the Dutch will just get up and ask someone to be quieter.
And Belgians aren't as honest in communicating negative things. We usually have the bad habit of casting doubt over our own opinions before stating them. "I might be mistaken, but I think this might not work because..." is a very common thing. Many people do things like this even when they are very confident they are not mistaken. It'd surprise me if the Dutch do this.
I seem to recall hearing "wat kan ik voor u doen?" or "wat willen jullie drinken?" for example. I'm still learning Dutch, but neither of those carries more or less directness or softness to me.
I don't recall ever hearing this in the NL. Maybe it's a Flemish thing.
Literally, it'd be "what may it be" but I don't think a good translation is possible. It'd end up with something like "what is your preference?" but I could come up with a Dutch, formal version of that: "wat mag het u believen?" where "believen" is an equivalent to "wünschen". A German could say, in short, "Sie wünschen?" and with the correct tone and body language it wouldn't be rude. You could say the same about Dutch; tone and body language are very important in communication (I have autism and am in an autism support group where this was recently addressed wink.)
Or perhaps rather "what would you like to order", but shorter. A German translation would end up with "Was möchten Sie haben?" though the Dutch one you mentioned cleverly avoids "du vs Sie" aka (in Dutch) tutoyeren [1]. I find it weak; get over yourself and treat the customer as such. Heck, how about having pride in treating your customer well? Something thoroughly lacking in The Netherlands. And I get it; sometimes you're tired while working such job or it is late or a bad day but this isn't that; it is systematic, and rather rampant in "Randstad" (big cities in Holland).
The Germans use "bitte" a lot more, and are always formal in situations where the Dutch have swapped to "jij/je". Especially Vodafone Netherlands (who got their helpdesk ironically in Maastricht) is so obviously using "jij/je" on their support pages. Cringeworthy! Hello?! I am your customer not your acquaintance!! Also compare for example casual restaurants in Germany and The Netherlands.
It isn't that these rules of using "u" don't exist in Dutch; they do. Its just -slowly but surely- being used less and less with a turning point around the (wild) '70s.
For me, the main thing is that the Dutch simply don't layer their speech whereas in most other cultures there is huge difference between what's being said and what is really meant by that.
In Dutch culture that basically doesn't exist except at levels where it's inevitable (politics, upper management) and even there it's much less subtle than it would be elsewhere and you need to carefully calibrate to see if your conversation partner picks up on it or not.
Given that there is no such double/hidden layer to use it's no surprise that we inevitably became more blunt and direct.
Perhaps it's a result from our long history as traders and the realization we can't possibly manage double/hidden layers for all the cultures we interacted with and thus ended up throwing out the concept altogether.
That was my thought as well. Trade languages are always intentionally simplified and essentially impossible to use for dropping indirect hints. I believe this is very much a feature, not a bug. It substantially reduces opportunities for cross cultural misunderstandings and faux pas.
Apropos of nothing, I really liked the Dutch proverb in the article "Just be normal. That's crazy enough."
It doesn't cover everything, but it does play its part.
That's weird, I always hear that people in Rotterdam are the most direct ones within Netherlands.
It's funny to read this article where someone gives an example that instead of giving loads of reasons to see a doctor you should ask to see a doctor. To me it's entirely strange you don't just ask for it. It comes across as being not too bright (why don't you conclude this yourself instead of talking endlessly about it with me).
I work with Danish people, they're pretty direct as well. It quite frustrates me if there's some issue and someone keeps on complaining/discussing with random people instead of raising it with the person who has the ability to make a change. I highly appreciate my style of working.
I've worked with people from all over the world and likely annoyed quite a few of them. That said, usually once they grasp that they can tell me things straightforwardly they tend to appreciate it.
(real life) Example: Me entering a tram in Amsterdam asking conductor: I need to go to this square... Amsterdam Conductor: yeah so??
Me entering a tram in Rotterdam asking conductor: I need to go to this square... Rotterdam Conductor: I'm not sure if you really should go there.
I'm from the North, if that makes any difference. I do tend to view Southerners as generally a bit less direct.
When working with Americans we had to sugar coat so much so noone was embarassed or we didn't step on the toes of the American workers.
Maybe this was just my experience.
Dutch directnesss was something that would freeze the blood in my veins at first but after getting the hang of it, i’ve come to enjoy it (they can be direct but another good thing is you can be direct back), because if they don’t have patience for BS, neither do i.
Interesting, because that's how it's expected to be done where I come from(Poland). Even "better" - the person on the other end will often interrupt you with a follow-up question to the the statement you hesitated to say.
But alt right is (afaik) much stronger in Britain than in the Netherlands. It follows that Dutch people either aren't as direct as the article claims or that alt right sentiment isn't being suppressed.
You are assuming that the only reason for _not_ being in the alt-right, is the fear of offending someone. I would argue that this is exactly the inverse in real life.
If issues are discussed openly, then you often find that you can reach a middle ground through discussion.
The second premise is also incorrect, since there _is_ a large alt-right faction in the Netherlands. To all intents and purposes the second largest political party is an alt-right party.
I am from The Netherlands and I'd say this article paints a bit rose-tinted glasses plus anecdotal evidence so allow me to present a can of nuances.
For example, the directness phenomenon isn't as widespread as it is everywhere in The Netherlands. I'm originally from the more rural south (a Catholic area) and its very much different than where I live now (Amsterdam Area). South is more.. "Burgundian" and less direct. Both have their charms but its annoying when outsiders equal Amsterdam or (big cities in) Holland with The Netherlands.
An example where directness backfires: when I go to a restaurant in Germany or when I get my train ticket checked in Germany I feel treated more like a gentleman. Service is flat out better over there. I'd suggest to consider this to be attributed to "Deutsche Gründlichkeit" but I'm not so arrogant to assume there are no other possible reasons. Anthropology is rather complex...
Another example of rose-tinted glasses is "Many of the older houses in the Netherlands have big windows, allowing visitors – if they so wish – to peep inside." everywhere I look there's tools used to close the windows be it small or large. And they're often used. Another typical thing in The Netherlands is that gardens are walled to denote which part is who's.
Or this one: "The Netherlands is unique in the way it treats topics such as prostitution, drugs and euthanasia." Perhaps the 3 of them as a package, but Christian CDA made mushrooms illegal in the '00s, coffeeshops are getting closed and are not allowed to be too close to schools (good luck with dense areas), and the Red Light District is less red nowadays. A country like Portugal also has decriminalized drugs. Euthenasia is also getting adopted more often in other countries (let us not forget Belgium and Canada [2]), and btw it has very strict rules in The Netherlands. The Christians dislike it as well.
"Proverbs such as ‘Doe maar normaal, dan ben je al gek genoeg’ (just be normal, that’s already crazy enough) or ‘Stek je hoofd niet boven het maaiveld uit’ (don’t put your head above the ground) are there to remind us that we are all the same." These stem very much from Calvinism.
Leo Blokhuis made a 8 part series "Achter De Dijken" about Calvinism in The Netherlands [3]. I found it very good. It is in Dutch and probably geolocked to be only available for Dutch IPs, but series like these should work over VPN or be available on Usenet. Also, other public broadcast television might've bought the rights and provided translation, I don't know. Maybe it is even possible to suggest it to your public broadcast TV station? Even that series, however, is a caricature/generalisation.
[1] Or as others provided with nuance: "a big city in Holland"
Rotterdam is a lot more direct than Amsterdam.
You're going to experience the dutch directness firsthand.
Sometimes I wonder if this directness thing isn't just a myth started by the British, for whom the norm is politeness often verging on pure and simple hypocrisy.
When one cannot be polite, soft spoken, considerate, or just lacks tact, one can always go the Dutch way. Why bother?
https://bridgesandtangents.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/engli...
Currently living in Amsterdam, and the experience is much different than what you get in/with people from the Hague, Utrecht, Bossem...
I think that the real key to Dutch etiquette is efficiency. If it makes things go faster, it's good. You hold a door open for someone (irrespective of gender) only if it's efficient for both of you to do so. Directness is more efficient than beating around the bush, honesty is more efficient than a comfortable lie when it concerns an issue that's going to have to be dealt with at some point. Picking fights with people is not efficient. That's a waste of everybody's time.
> when you say something in a business meeting that is not a very smart suggestion, people will always point it out,” he said.
> “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.”
> One time, I found myself at the supermarket staring with disbelief at the groceries that had spilled out of my
> hands onto the floor. Within seconds, I was surrounded by no fewer than 10 Dutch people, all of them giving me
> advice on what to do. But not one lifted a finger. To me, the situation was obvious: I needed help immediately.
> But the Dutch saw it differently: unless I specifically asked for help, it probably wasn’t necessary.
> “Calvinism dictated the individual responsibility for moral salvage from the sinful world through introspection,
> total honesty, soberness, rejection of ‘pleasure’ as well as the ‘enjoyment’ of wealth,”
Though if there's one taboo, it's definitely conspicuous displays of wealth. Millionaires better pretend they're normal people like the rest of us. We've always been a very egalitarian society. Even in the 18th century, our transport network of river barges transported all passengers in the same cabin, whether they were nobility or peasants.
> This straightforwardness is so intrinsic in Dutch society that there’s even a Dutch word for it:
> bespreekbaarheid (speakability) – that everything can and should be talked about; there are no taboo topics.
> Many of the older houses in the Netherlands have big windows, allowing visitors – if they so wish – to peep inside.
> “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.”
> “We don’t discuss salaries, we don’t discuss pensions. Anything to do with luxury. We don’t talk about how
> beautiful our house is. We don’t discuss how big our car is,”
> What I wouldn’t mind losing is the needlessly giving opinions about everything. Especially
> commenting on what could be better when it concerns things that can hardly be changed at all.
Hear hear.
Guess which of them lives by the mantra of being 'as direct as they want'?
edited...
I live in a culture where being direct is somewhat frowned upon. Not only "if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything" but sometimes "if you don't have anything nice to say, make something up". People avoid confronting each other with what they think and want to the point where they'll express the exact opposite, at best adding subtle, passive-aggressive hints as to what they really mean and using irony to avoid responsibility. I guess the burden of confronting people is understood as higher than the burden of constantly having to second guess what at surface seems sincere, to a greater degree than in other, more "direct" cultures.
This can be very excluding to people who didn't grow up here. People that travel here briefly will probably get the impression that we are very nice and welcoming, but if you stay here for long you'll probably find the occasional direct asshole refreshingly simple to dismiss as just that.
That's not to say that being direct is inherently better than being indirect. Particularly the interpretation of "direct" that boils down to "I'll say whatever I want the moment I think of it even though I know that no one wants to hear it". But it's a misinterpretation, really. If I am a considerate person, being direct will reflect that. Before I comment on your shoes I will consider that you probably like them yourself and that it's not very important to me to express that I don't. If you asked me what I thought of them and I didn't tell you what I think, I would consider that rude.
You’re intellectually lazy and oversimplifying a complex issue. You likely either lack social awareness or have a total lack of understanding of how minorities are bullied and made to feel worthless (because your views are so bland as to cause no offense, and you are not a member of any minority).
Let's try.
I think you should improve your grammar.
[ :) ]
And of course, it's good that this is open for everyone to see.
If you think my views are "bland", you haven't got a clue, and of course, you are a bully.
Good chat. Cheers.
Thing is, being open / honest sometimes triggers emotion and does not stimulate discussion or progress.
My experience (source: being Dutch / Swiss-German) is that it really really matters not only what is being said or even how true it is, a very important aspect is what / how the receiver interprets the message. When I am with my Dutch (Amsterdammer) family and friends, we are direct in a very specific way about specific subjects. Being with my Swiss-German family and friends we are too: but on different subjects and in different wording.
Just like humor translates lousy, so do nuance and social etiquettes.
I agree there are often situation where it would be helpful if people would be more direct.
However I think there are situations where it’s better to either avoid the issue entirely, or take a less direct approach. That might be the case with those who have radically different views to us, or are members of a minority where taking a direct approach might be misinterpreted as overly agressive, or could make them feel otherwise unwelcome.
Hmm...
Do you even realize there is a difference?
To me it is actually kind of ironic that the continual equating of "plain truth, even if it causes offense" with "intending to cause harm by intensional bullying masquerading as being truthful" has "progressed" [sic] so far as that people who hold these views truly can't tell the difference any longer.
I just don’t think it’s helpful, or advances the discussion to say them the way I did (or at all). I said them that way to illustrate a point.
You’ve failed to grasp this point. Being direct is good sometimes, but not always. And sometimes being “direct” is used to mask bullying behavior.
The “google manifesto” is one such example. I’d guess you consider it “being direct”?
I realize that it can be hard to bracket out one's reactive emotions when the internet is doing its provocation thing, but we need everyone here to try. Our common interest in having a site that doesn't suck needs to take precedence over our annoyance at each other's ideological views.
Could you please read https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16288896? Your comments are increasingly vandalizing this site, and it's dismaying.
That's a bannable attack on HN. I'm not going to ban you because the thread is about "directness". On HN, however, it is not ok to be a direct asshole, so would you please not post like this here?