Keeping it short - abbreviations:

As a foreigner trying to get to grips with the Dutch language, it sometimes seems like the locals are conspiring against you by sprinkling their sentences with random clumps of letters.

Occasionally these cryptic additions seem like they might be words - miv, muv, tov. Sometimes they defy any attempt at pronunciation - zgn, vnl, ipv. And some just look like a cry for help - aub, eea.

Never fear! Dutch aren't messing with your mind on purpose. They just love their abbreviations. So, miv,muv and tov aren't Donald Duck's Jewish nephews but a quick way of saying "starting at", "except for" and "in relation to". (met ingang van; met uitzondering van; ten opzichte van)

Whoever typed zgn, vnl and ipv wasn't having a keyboard meltdown but was actually using much-loved abbreviations for "so-called", "mainly" and "instead of". (zogenaamd; voornamelijk; in plaats van)

It may look a bit blunt, but aub is actually a polite - if concise - way of saying "please", while eea is an abbreviated catchall phrase referring back to anything that has been mentioned previously. (alstublieft; een en ander)

Keeping it short is a tendency that runs through all aspects of Dutch society. Even Dutch celebrities are cut down to size and become BN-ers, short for Bekende Nederlander or "well-known Dutch person"!

Alcohol:
Gin was invented in the Netherlands. It was - and still is - called "jenever" (pronounced yeh-NAY-ver) and was originally used for medicinal purposes in the 16th century. The juniper berry, which is used to mask the flavour, comes from the juniper bush, a protected plant.

April Fool's:
From an early age Dutch children are brought up with the saying: "Op 1 april verloor Alva zijn bril". Literally translated it means: On 1 April Alba lost his glasses. But in actual fact it refers to the Spanish Duke of Alba losing the town of Den Briel to the Dutch in 1572. It was an important historical battle in the Dutch War of Independence (1568-1648).

Bicycles:
The average Dutch person bikes 2.5 km per day and 900km per year! At that rate it would take our Amsterdam colleagues 12 days to cycle into Hilversum. More here.

Bicycle = fiets:
The Dutch word for bicycle is fiets (pronounced "feets")... and nobody really knows why. In most languages, the etymology is obvious - the English bicycle, meaning "two wheels", the French vélocipède, meaning "fast feet", the German fahrrad, meaning "ride wheel".

This was originally the case in Dutch as well - the bicycle was officialy known as a rijwiel or "ride wheel". This term can still be found in combination with other words such as rijwielhandelaar or "bicycle store"

Some people say the word fiets came from E. C. Viets, a bicycle-maker in the 1880s, but it appears that the term was in use ten years earlier. Others suggest it is a corruption of the French word for speed,vitesse or even the French word for bicycle vélocipède. Still others say that it's an onomatopoeic word that simply sounds like a fast-moving bicycle: ffts. It has also been suggested that the word fiets is derived from vietsen, meaning "to move quickly" in Dutch dialect.

In any case, bicycles are a part of Dutch daily life and the word fiets has made its way into many common expressions. Here are a few typical examples:

Op díe fiets. Literally: On that bicycle. Figuratively: Oh, that's what you mean!
Wat heb ik nou aan mijn fiets hangen? Literally: What's hanging on my bike? Figuratively: What's going on? What's happening? (Said by someone who is *really* surprised.)
Geef mijn fiets terug. Literally: Give me my bike back. Figuratively: It's a joke referring to WWII when the Germans confiscated many Dutch bicycles; it's used to make fun of Germans.
Snel door heen fietsen. Literally: To cycle quickly on. Figuratively: To go through something quickly, as in an agenda item on a meeting.
Op een oude fiets moet je het leren. Literally: You have to learn on an old bicycle. Figuratively: Young people should learn about sex with an older (trusted) lover.

Bridges:
Amsterdam has 1,281 bridges. This means that crossing one bridge a day, it would take you 3.5 years to go across each one of them just once. Luckily there is no one-bridge-a-day-limit... More here.

Cake for breakfast:
Like most cultures, the Dutch have many different options for breakfast, including cereal or bread with cold cuts, cheese, or sweet toppings (such as jam, chocolate spread or hagelslag - see below). But the Dutch also often eat ontbijtkoek (breakfast cake), also known as peperkoek (pepper cake) or kruidkoek (spice cake).

This "cake" is more like a dense, sticky bread. The taste is sweet but strong, and the cake includes spices such as cinnamon, ginger, cloves, and nutmeg. A local northern variation is flavoured with aniseed and curiously called "oudewijvenkoek" (old hag's cake).

Ontbijtkoek is a traditional home remedy for tummy troubles and is reported to have laxative properties... so best beware.

While breakfast cake can be eaten as-is, it's often served slathered in butter... or sandwiched between two slices of bread! Yes, really, a cake sandwich.

Carrots:
Orange carrots appeared in the Netherlands in the 17th century. It has been said that they were bred for the House of Orange who led the Dutch revolt against Spain and later became the Dutch royal family. Orange is still the official colour of the Netherlands (just check out the sea of orange on this Google image search for the Dutch national football team).

Coffee:
After the Scandinavians, the Dutch are the world's biggest coffee drinkers. The Dutch were the first to import coffee to Europe on a large scale back in the 1600s and 1700s and were the first to add coffee into the fair-trade movement in 1988 with the Max Havelaar brand. More here.

Cruyff-isms:
Johan Cruyff is not only famous for his football, but also for his idiosyncratic one-liners that are a combination of brilliant insight and stating the obvious. Even the most ardent football hater (such as me!) is familiar with at least some of Cruyff's sayings, which are now known as Cruyff-isms.

His best known one-liner, De bal is rond (The ball is round), means that the outcome of something is unpredictable. Other much-quoted one-liners are:

• Every advantage has its disadvantage.
• Without the ball you can't win.
• Always make sure you score one more goal than the opposition.
• Look, you have to at least get the ball between the posts.

Dairy:
Dutch people have the lowest incidence of lactose intolerance of any country - only 1%. Why? Milk products form a large part of the staple diet - even that of adults.

Diminutive
The Dutch love their diminutives. Where we might call a cute dog a "doggy", or a cute cat a "kitty", the Dutch add the diminutive "je" ending to every other noun. For example, a dog - hond - or cat - kat - becomes a hondje or a katje. But it doesn't stop a cute things. Even a table - tafel - or a glass of beer -bier - could be a tafeltje or a biertje.

It goes so far that some words can no longer be separated from their diminutive. For example, nobody would ever say een goed woord doen - to put in a good word - instead of een goed woordje doen.

Some diminutives have even developed a separate - or totally different - meaning from their root word such as brood and broodje - a loaf of bread and a bread roll - or stuk and stukje - a beautiful woman and a piece of something.

There are some words, usually collective or uncountable nouns, that would never been diminutive-ized, for example, the government - regering - would never be called the regerinkje and electricity - electriciteit - would never be called electriciteitje. Serious functions are also never referred to in the diminutive - for example a birth, marriage or funeral would never be a geboortetje, huwelijkje or begrafenisje.

Occasionally, the diminutive can be used in a dismissive - literally belittling - way such as agentje - for a self-important policeman who gave you a ticket you didn't like.

Watch a video of the famous Dutch performer Wim Sonneveld stringing a whole lot of diminutives together for - if you understand Dutch - comic effect. For the non-Dutch-speakers, just listen for the "je" - sounds like "chuh" - throughout! 

Drop:
The Dutch love their drop - that's Dutch for licorice. To give you an idea of how much they like this salty-sweet candy, the Dutch eat an average of two kilograms of drop per person per year - that's a lot! Though there are over 80 "typical" kinds of licorice in the Netherlands, and most grocery stores devote almost as much space to licorice as to chocolate and other candy combined, there are some basics that any licorice lover should know:

Typical drop flavours:

• Engelse drop - in English these are called allsorts - they are mixed shapes and most have a coconut or sugar candy layer
• Zoute drop - "salty licorice" - these are made with salmiak (ammonium chloride) to give a salty flavour
• Dubbelzoute drop - "double salty licorice" - this is just extra, extra salty - an acquired taste!
• Zoete drop - sweet licorice
• Laurierdrop - bay leaf licorice
• Salmiakdrop - salmiak licorice - slightly different from zoute drop, these are usually hard candies with the salty salmiak flavour from ammonium chloride
• Honingdrop - honey licorice - usually taken as a cough candy
• Mintdropjes - mint drop - usually with a mint candy coating

Typical drop shapes:

• Boerderijdrop - shaped like a boerderij - farmhouse
• Muntdrop - shaped like munt - coins
• Katjesdrop - shaped like katten - kittens
• Dropveters - shaped like veters - laces
• Griotten - soft, light brown cubes, the size of small sugar cubes and coated in sugar
• Kokindjes - similar but black and not coated in sugar

Radio Netherlands worldwide/ Expatica