More Warning Signs That You Are Becoming Dutch

Warning Signs That You Are Becoming Dutch - Part 2

Have you been living in Holland for a while? Do you think you might be becoming Dutch or do you think you might actually be Dutch? Here is part two of our warning signs to look out for.

You Might Be Becoming Dutch If…

(Part 2)

1) You are familiar with and have used the two tone sigh.

2) You enthusiastically overextend the word ‘Goedeeeeeee’ until you’ve figured out what time of day it is and whether you should end with morgen, middag or avond.

3) You consider ice cream toppings on bread a healthy breakfast.

4) You are no longer impressed by windmills.

5) You have a calendar hanging in the toilet which contains the birthdays of all your friends and family.

6) Your throat no longer hurts when you try to pronounce any Dutch words containing the letter G.

7) You regularly use the Dutch word ‘dus(‘so’) to communicate a wide variety of thoughts and emotions, without feeling the need to put it into a full sentence.

8) You no longer pause to consider what a frikandel is made of before eating it.

9) You know what a kroket is and know to avoid the orange ones.

10) You’ve started making your own sandwiches to take to the office (but often eat them on the train).

11) The Albert Heijn layout has started to makes sense.

12) You have used your bicycle to transport one or more of the following: an item of furniture, a mattress, a suitcase, a crate of beer, another bicycle, newly purchased electrical equipment, the weekly shopping or other large objects.

13) You consider 15 degrees celsius warm and will happily have a barbeque under such conditions.

14) When you speak Dutch the Dutch actually reply in Dutch.

15) You are aware that it is ‘The Netherlands’ and not ‘Holland’.

16) You no longer freaked out and start to panic in front of your friends when the emergency alarms are tested at the start of the month.

17) You are able to eat more than two oliebollen in a day.

18) You own, have owned or know someone who owns a caravan.

19) You’ve started using strange sign language to indicate when something is ‘lekker’.

20) You never lose hope about the Elfstedentocht.

For more warning signs that you might be becoming Dutch check out part 3.

Stuart

Stuart is an accident prone Englishman who has been living in the Netherlands since 2001. Even his move to the country was an unintentional accident, the result of replying to a cryptic job advertisement he found one day in a local British magazine. Since then he has learned to love the Dutch (so much so that he married one of them) and now calls the country home. He started the blog Invading Holland in 2006 as a place to share his strange stories of language misunderstandings, cultural confusions and his own accident prone nature.

34 Responses

  1. Gez says:

    “Never lose hope about the Elfstedentocht” – I’ve got myself a pair of noren (speed skates) now, on the loose hope I can enter it one day :)

  2. Johan says:

    “The Albert Heijn layout has started to makes sense.”
    … and hence you can be 100% certain that they’re about to change it (again).

  3. Doesjka says:

    dus….