Swedish & Dutch Culture
Getting married with a foreigner confronts you with a different culture. We have managed to live with both the Dutch and the Swedish culture. For all international guests at our wedding, we have collected some information about the Swedish and Dutch Culture.
The Xenophobe's Guide to the Dutch
A guide to understanding the Dutch that goes beyond the tulips and windmills to reveal their real personality and peculiarities. (by Rodney Bolt)
1. It's all in your mind
The spirit of tolerance does constant battle with the ghost of Calvin for control of the Dutch psyche. Few Dutch people go to church any more, but they don't need to. Inside every Hollander's head is a little pulpit containing a preacher with a wagging finger.
2. Going Dutch
This is the nation that once sold scrapers for getting the last remnants of the film of buttermilk from the inside of the bottle. The Dutch 'think with their pockets'. Parsimony is not an embarrassment, but a virtue.
3. Culture vultures
The Dutch are cultural magpies. They keep a beady eye on other people's cultural trends, and are swift to snap up sparkling new fashions. This means that rather than producing an indigenous culture, they have become voracious consumers of everybody else's - true Europeans, whose cultural fads and fancies know no borders. The Netherlands acts as a giant cultural sponge.
4. Double Dutch
For the Dutch, the other side of the question is as important as the question itself. Dialogue is the lubricant of tolerance, and the essential ingredient of dialogue is 'Yes, but...'.
"Tippukol Dutsj"

Dutch English is very good (if kuttural). It is even understandable if/when you bear in mind that...
when a Dutchman says:
he probably means:
rather than:
typical Dutch characteristically Dutch
please here you are please
beautiful/beautyfull great gorgeous
learn teach learn
if when
then than
10 x + y (for 1 < x < 10, 1 < y < 10) 10 y + x (for 1 < x < 10, 1 < y < 10)
monotonous monotonic
sheet transparency (Br. overlay) bed linnen/piece of paper
how does it look like? what does it look like?
ß (beta) faculty exact sciences second rate institute
he sits behind the computer he sits at the keyboard he is changing cables
a Röntgen photo an X-ray
How long are you? How tall are you?
the most famous picture in the world Rembrandt's Nachtwacht the Mona Lisa
Do you have a fire? Do you have a light?
England Britain
Eastern Easter
ex-murderer axe murderer
pocketbook paperback purse
canteen cafeteria flask
"Let's make things better" "Let's not make things worse"
eventually possibly in the end
heppie ent happy ending

The Xenophobe's Guide to the Swedes
A guide to understanding the Swedes that takes the chill out of their cool exterior and reveals the warmth of their inner selves. (by Peter Berlin)
1. Soulful sadness
A common trait among Swedish people is a deeply felt svårmod, a dark melancholy born out of long winters, high taxes and a sense of being stuck far out on a geo-political and socio-economic limb. They brood a lot over the meaning of life in a self-absorbed sort of way without ever arriving at satisfactory answers.
2. Love all
The Swedes indulge in sport for leisure and sex for pleasure. Some people treat sex as a sport in order to combine leisure with pleasure, and thus save time and energy.
3. Nurture nature
The Swedes have a dream: to save Nature from Man. This is more than just a vision - it's as close to a passion as the Swedes ever get.
4. Net loss
Becoming rich in Sweden has never been easy. As Ingmar Bergman found out, even millionaires can have difficulties making ends meet when income tax is levied at 102%.
More about the Swedes...
More about learing dutch or swedish...