Despite Dutch directness, you’ll need to—if you wish to truly integrate into Dutch culture—be prepared to make a bit of small talk in Dutch. By being able to chat about any number of general subjects, you’ll connect with your colleagues, neighbours and business partners. It’s a valuable skill which you can quickly feel at ease using, because you don’t actually need a great deal of vocabulary for it.
The Dutch tend to get straight down to business in appointments. An informal, ice-breaking conversation takes place beforehand in the lift, while pouring coffee or while waiting for other participants to arrive. In these chats, you can expect questions like:
You should prepare for these kinds of questions, so you can answer them quickly, easily and naturally. They are an implicit way for the Dutch to see whether you fit in a bit and can be especially relevant during job interviews.
You run into a Dutch colleague you don’t know very well at the coffee machine. What should you say? A popular subject is the weekend, for instance:
Of course, you can always broach a subject held dearly by the Dutch: the weather. They never tire of talking about it. Some examples:
Other things you can say:
To quickly start communicating in Dutch, the best thing you can do is learn the specific language you need for your own situation. A language course can help you with this.