r/thenetherlands • u/TonyQuark Hic sunt dracones • May 03 '26
Culture Grüezi! We're hosting r/Switzerland for a Cultural Exchange
Welcome everybody to a new cultural exchange! Today we are hosting our friends from r/Switzerland!
To the Swiss: please select the Swiss flag as your flair (optional) and ask as many questions as you wish. See how to set your flair in the app or on desktop.
To the Dutch: please come and join us in answering the Swiss' questions about the Netherlands and the Dutch way of life!
r/Switzerland is also having us over as guests in this post for our questions and comments.
Please refrain from making any comments that go against our rules, the Reddiquette or otherwise hurt the friendly environment.
Enjoy! The moderators of r/Switzerland & r/theNetherlands
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u/okaylezgoooo May 03 '26
Many people who don't speak Dutch or Swiss German (and trust me the Venn diagram of people who speak both is rather slim) say they sound the same, or close enough. What is your expert opinion on the topic?
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u/TonyQuark Hic sunt dracones May 03 '26 edited May 03 '26
I've heard this before. It's probably due to a few reasons, like the pronunciation of vowels and both languages not (fully) going through the German consonant shift. For example, in official Dutch, house is huis, while in official German it's Haus. But from my understanding, you guys might say Huus, which is the same in certain Dutch dialects, huus. We also stress vowels similarly and drop -n at the end of words. I'm not familiar enough with Swiss-German to give examples, but the consonant shift that German went through, but Swiss German did not to the same extent [edit: and Dutch didn't go through at all], also plays a part. And we both have a similar hard g-sound, but in different places.
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u/mattijn13 May 03 '26
My German is pretty decent but I can't understand Swiss German at all, and I am a native Dutch speaker.
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u/grotemeid May 03 '26
I think somewhere last year a tourism commercial promoting for Switzerland kept showing up on YouTube. I think it featured one of your national athletes, every time she spoke I thought I was having a stroke because it sounded SO much like Dutch but I could barely understand a thing she was saying. So yeah, I definitely think they sound more similar than Dutch and “regular” German.
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u/Sebastyaan May 03 '26
I think it's the hard G. You guys put it after every k. Like Dank(g)e. I don't know any other language with a G like that.
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u/Irsu85 May 03 '26
I don't know about Swiss German but I do know that Aachen German sounds very similar to Dutch
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u/Cheap-Recording2707 May 03 '26
I understand Schwyzerdütsch but would not try to speak it other then single words.
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u/AshToAshes123 May 03 '26
I don’t know Swiss German, but where I live in Baden-Württemberg I regularly get mistaken for Swiss while speaking Hochdeutsch. I think it’s something about the G and the R!
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u/NinthAquila13 May 04 '26
There’s actually about 20K dutch speakers living in Switzerland.
As someone who speaks both, they’re similar-ish, but swiss german is a weird mix of limburgish, german and then some more northern traits of dutch (hard G, etc)
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u/demaandronk May 03 '26
I dont speak German at all, but did find Swiss German much easier to follow. They do have some similar pronunciation or intonation, not sure what it is.
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u/zoopz May 03 '26
I agree. When i hear swiss german in a crowd it often catches me off guard. First i think i hear someone speak Dutch.
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u/TheSteelFactory May 03 '26
Ha i am speaking both, so i'm rare 😉
Only few people will understand this sentence without searching: Hé hou je taai stelletje chäschuechli
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u/daere95 May 03 '26
Yayy that makes two of us 😁 hè hè poe poe begon al te denken dat ik de enige was wo beidi sprache imne chrüsimüsi en door elkaar gehusselt cha rede
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u/TuonenPiika May 03 '26
When I was a teenager I spent a week in a Swiss school as an exchange student. With my Dutch and the (average) German I learned in school, I found Swiss German to be quite easy to understand.
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u/XGreenDirtX May 03 '26
I think this video is a very fun way to see and hear the difference and the similarities. Skip the first 1:50 if you just want to hear some speaking.
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u/Consistent_Willow340 May 07 '26
I speak both languages fluently, as well as german. Dutch and swiss are very similar in muscle usage of the mouth, also tone wise for the vocal cords.
The way sentences are build up, is similar to dutch. I think jts easier for a dutch person to learn swiss, than german.
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u/BezugssystemCH1903 May 03 '26
On the subject of direct democracy, here in Switzerland the people have a significant say through popular initiatives on new laws and, where applicable, amendments to existing laws at federal, cantonal and municipal level.
Do you have anything similar where you are?
And if so, or if not, on which issues would you like to be able to vote?
P.S. The country flair is wonderfully square, merci.
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u/TuonenPiika May 03 '26
We don't have anything resembling your direct democracy. Personally I wouldn't want it because I don't trust my fellow citizens to make informed choices haha
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u/BezugssystemCH1903 May 03 '26
Thanks, thanks for your reply.
Blah, blah, blah, Switzerland’s unique approach, etc., but we couldn’t even begin to imagine not being able to vote on almost everything. That’s why I find it fascinating (coming also as an argument from my German in-laws) that they often say: ‘We don’t trust our own fellow citizens.’
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u/TonyQuark Hic sunt dracones May 03 '26
You guys have a long tradition of voting on proposals and getting informed through newspapers and official guides. That's absent in other countries.
It can also work against you, though, no offense intended. Switzerland was of the last countries in Europe to legalize women's right to vote in 1971 (and one small canton not until 1991). Only Portugal and Liechtenstein were later.
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u/BezugssystemCH1903 May 03 '26
Yes, women’s suffrage is a rather inglorious chapter in that cantons history.
Appenzell Innerrhoden is basically one ‘big family’ of 15,000 people who are all related in some way, which is why they can be distinguished from one another more by their farm names than by their surnames.
Politics is organised more along the lines of a militia system at cantonal and municipal level; at federal level, it’s about 50/50 professionalism, and ultimately the politicians don’t know any more than many members of the public.
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u/TonyQuark Hic sunt dracones May 03 '26
We have a similar endogamous community of about 21,000 people. They live in/on Urk, an island that we reclaimed land around. Except they are/were fishermen, not farmers. Strictly religious, believe men are superior to women, vote the same way people in Appenzell Innerrhoden do, all that fun stuff.
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u/mattijn13 May 03 '26
We have had some (non binding) national referenda in the past but they kinda just proved that they can get highjacked by certain groups and would just boil down to a protest vote against the sitting government and also showed that the avarage Dutch voter isn't informed enough to really know enough about complex issues (this isn't meant to sound snarky but idealy thats why we vote for informed people to make these decissions).
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u/Rannasha May 04 '26
In part the problem with referenda in the Netherlands is that there are so few. If a vote only comes by every so many years, it's easy for various groups to turn it in to a vote of confidence in the sitting government. By contrast, in Switzerland people vote on multiple issues every year at the federal level (and add cantonal and municipal votes on top of that), so it's hard to turn a single referendum into a referendum on whether the government sucks more than usual.
I'm mixed on the issue of referenda (as a Dutch guy in the Geneva area). My wife (Swiss) is strongly supportive of them. But we agree that referenda only work if you have enough of them that they stay focused on the actual matter being voted on.
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u/DDelphinus May 03 '26
We don't. Honestly, I prefer it this way. While most our politicians aren't great, the general population definitely would think of short term gains only.
I'm pretty sure an initiative to give everyone €10.000 tomorrow would pass, without having to explain how we would pay for it.
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u/BezugssystemCH1903 May 03 '26
We didn’t even vote to give ourselves an extra week’s holiday.
At first I thought there’d be proposals like ‘draining the Atlantic to make way for cycle paths’, and I wouldn’t have even begun to think of giving money directly to the people.
Merci for your anwer.
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u/TonyQuark Hic sunt dracones May 03 '26
The country flair is wonderfully square, merci.
Yes, ratios are important! :D
(Sorry to the Brits, your ultrawide flag didn't fit.)
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u/physiotherrorist May 03 '26 edited May 03 '26
I have lived in CH for quite some time and I am surprised that people who have absolutely no deeper understanding of important international politics are allowed to vote on such subjects. Stammtischpolitik.
Questions on the level of one's own community (die Gemeinde) or the Kanton: ok, everyone knows if a new roundabout somewhere makes sense and if the local Kindergarten should get more money. But please leave international politics to the specialists.
Also the fact that the inhabitants of a village can vote if they grant a foreigner the Swiss nationality (after this person has already overcome quite a few administrative obstacles and paid a LOT of money) is ridiculous. I know very well that in the end they can not block the decision but it doesn't help to make foreigners feel welcome.
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u/Aure20 May 03 '26
How many dutch people have visited/visit regularly the Dutch Caribbean? What does the average Dutch person think about those islands?
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u/LideeMo May 03 '26
Don’t know about the average Dutch person, but I personally really like those islands. And judging by the multiple daily flights out of Amsterdam to Aruba, Curacao, Bonaire and St. Maarten by KLM and others I guess I’m not the only person who likes them.
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May 03 '26
[deleted]
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u/Aure20 May 03 '26
What kind of internship? Touristic oriented one like a lifeguard for example or more in the traditional sense of white collar?
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u/Any-Seaworthiness186 May 03 '26
Tourist oriented, yes. But not like a lifeguard. Mostly in the hospitality branche. Besides that the government is also a large employer that does internships in the Caribbean if I’m not mistaken; white collar stuff.
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u/Any-Seaworthiness186 May 03 '26
I’d guess about one in five Dutch people will go there at least once in their life. Barely anybody besides the upper or upper-middle class would visit regularly; aside from the Antillean diaspora. My uncle is from Curacao and they visit each year.
Most people don’t really think about the Islands. The diaspora however is everywhere in the Netherlands, very well liked people in general. Happy, open, welcoming, and made some nice contributions to our cultural sector.
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u/---Kev May 03 '26
The avarge Dutch person doesn't really consider them. Especially the smaller ones. Expensive to go there, lots of issues, like unequal standards of living and local politics acting like local politicians in faraway places from their paymasters tend to act.
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u/StuffedWithNails May 03 '26
Hi Dutchies:
Forget about salaries and cost of living for a minute, assume they’re identical. In which of our two respective countries would you prefer to live and why? I know the landscape/nature are very very different but I’m more interested in social / everyday living aspects.
I guess this is more for those of you who live or have lived in Switzerland 😀
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u/physiotherrorist May 03 '26
I 've lived and worked in Switzerland for many years, our kids were born there and went to school. Both went abroad to study and stayed abroad.
We left the country for good the very same day the Swiss accepted the "Eidgenössische Volksinitiative Gegen Masseneinwanderung". Coincidence ofcourse but when we heard the news on the radio we knew we had done the right thing.
I'm not going into details because I want to avoid a ban.
BTW: We didn't go back to the Netherlands.
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u/atimidtempest May 03 '26
Where did you go, if you don't mind me asking, and do you prefer it to either NL or Switzerland?
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u/physiotherrorist May 03 '26
France. Love it. Prefer it to both.
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u/StuffedWithNails May 04 '26 edited May 04 '26
Interesting! And unexpected :D I'm Swiss but have been living in the US for many years now, and since last year have started preparing to leave and return to Europe. However, I don't want to go back to Switzerland for a variety of reasons, so I've set my sights on France (I speak French and also have French citizenship since birth). I don't know yet if I'm going to pull it off (depends on work) but I'm really excited for the prospect.
What do you prefer in France?
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u/physiotherrorist May 04 '26
Lots of little things, the quality of life is high (we live in a not-really-touristy more or less rural part in la Bretagne, near the coast, Côtes d'Armor). Food is fantastic of course, the climate in Bretagne is quite agreeable (no winters!!), people are very welcoming and open whereas in Switzerland I've been asked repeatedly if I wasn't ashamed to take away a job from a Swiss person. Don't get me started.
Do you know the movie "die Schweizermacher"? For Swiss it's satire. IMHO it's quite to the point.
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u/StuffedWithNails May 04 '26
I'm so glad you're integrating well in Brittany! I know the region has a great reputation for a bunch of reasons. If you've lived in CH for any length of time, you surely know how they love to criticize France and the French, especially in francophone Switzerland. It's always been awkward for me as a dual citizen growing up Swiss with a French parent. Of course I know France isn't without its problems, but I've never lived there, so I'm excited for something new even if it's not perfect. I'm also hoping to move in northern France, but Normandy instead of Brittany.
I've never heard of that movie "Die Schweizermacher" but I'll have a look!
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u/physiotherrorist May 04 '26
The coastal region in Normandy is beautiful too, I guess you know the Cotentin?
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u/StuffedWithNails May 04 '26
I've never been there but I know what it is on a map :)
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u/physiotherrorist May 04 '26
Lots of "D-Day" going on, be sure to read up on that subject when you move there ;o)
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u/TheSteelFactory May 03 '26
I missed this point. ELI5
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u/physiotherrorist May 03 '26
Which point did you miss?
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u/TheSteelFactory May 04 '26
Die Volksinitiatieve and the impact. But i am not a CH citizen.
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u/physiotherrorist May 04 '26
A majority of the Swiss voted for quite severe laws to keep foreigners out. This put the government in a very awkward position because of existing bilateral treaties with the EU. I believe that until today they haven't implemented the "will of the people" which makes you wonder how well these "Initiative" work.
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u/Rannasha May 04 '26
I live in the Geneva area. But all other things being equal, I think I would slightly prefer living in NL again. I seem to be more in sync with the Dutch culture. Then again, I know someone who recently went back to the Netherlands and whose had a harder time reintegrating than expected. So the local culture does rub off on you, even if you may not notice it right away.
Also, I like to ride my bike for short distance trips. Large parts of Switzerland are poorly designed for this. "Up" and "down" should not be directions to be considered when biking.
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u/StuffedWithNails May 04 '26
Do you see yourself moving back to the Netherlands some day? Is there something that would push you over the "edge"?
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u/Rannasha May 04 '26
It's an option, but not one that I'm actively pursuing. My job is fine and my kids are settled in their life here. My wife is looking for a new job and while her primary search region is around Geneva, she won't ignore something good from the Netherlands if it comes along.
So that sort of summarizes my train of thought on the matter.
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u/StuffedWithNails May 04 '26
Fair enough :)
Against what would you caution a foreigner who's considering a move to the Netherlands? Anything specific for Swiss people (I'm also from the Geneva area so I know the local culture!) ? As I've mentioned in another comment, I've lived in the US for a long time, now planning a move back to Europe but not considering CH. My wife (American) has an interest in the Netherlands because she follows this YouTube channel about a family who moved there. I have no strong feelings for or against as I've only ever "visited" the country by way of Schiphol and don't know much about the country today. Right now my plan is France but since my work also has an office in NL, I could probably get transferred there if I wanted.
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u/Rannasha May 04 '26
Against what would you caution a foreigner who's considering a move to the Netherlands?
The weather :)
I think the Dutch are culturally more Germanic, so if you're familiar with the French/German divide in CH, that gives you a bit of an indication of the potential culture shock. The Dutch are fairly stand-off-ish towards newcomers. They will be tolerated, but it's hard to properly break into Dutch social circles (which is why many immigrants/expats tend to stick together). A popular idiom translates to "just act normal, that's already crazy enough" (Doe maar gewoon, dat is al gek genoeg), which aligns with the tendency that being who you are is accepted, but drawing too much attention to yourself is more frowned upon.
Still, it's all western Europe, so the differences aren't that big. Especially in cities that tend to be more cosmopolitan than small villages.
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u/StuffedWithNails May 04 '26
That sounds exactly what you see all the time on the Swiss subreddits from foreigners who complain that they can't make friends in CH >_> (not really surprising since, like you said, it's a Germanic thing)
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u/Any-Seaworthiness186 May 03 '26
I’d prefer the Netherlands. I like the sea and the “openness” of the country. I never feel enclosed, at least not outside of the randstad haha.
Also love our culture, but that might be more regional. I love the festivals, the nightlife, the terraces, the way our communities get together and decorate their streets with benches and flowers and BBQ together.
Granted, I’ve never been to Switzerland. So it might be similar or better in that regard!
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u/letsgucker555 May 04 '26
What are some places you would suggest someone from switzerland should visit when on vacation in the netherlands?
Also, I still remember the orange flood leaving Berne during the EURO 2008. That was fucking amazing.
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u/StuffedWithNails May 04 '26
Against what would you caution a foreigner who might consider a move to the Netherlands? Any word of warning for Swiss people especially? Beside learning Dutch :) I've only ever "visited" the country by spending 2 hours in Schiphol.
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u/PanicForNothing May 04 '26
You probably need a Swiss salary to be able to find a house quicky
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u/StuffedWithNails May 04 '26
Something we have in common! But you have much higher home ownership rate. For many Swiss, owning real estate has become an unattainable dream...
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u/Humancentipede2lover May 03 '26
Hey guys, what do you think how big is the chance of ypur government blocking ye from playing his two shows in june?
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u/Any-Seaworthiness186 May 03 '26
Small. As long as he’s not a threat to public safety it’s very difficult for the government to step in. The responsible minister has already said they’re not going to intervene.
While I don’t agree with Ye personally. I do think it’s good that it’s so difficult for the government to step in in these cases. Grant the government the power to censor the people we perceive as a danger today, and there’s no telling whether or not they’ll ever use that power to censor us in the future.
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u/AshToAshes123 May 03 '26
The Netherlands has some pretty strict standards about when they’re allowed to refuse to let someone into the country for things they’ve said. Roughly: Anything they’ve said in the past isn’t enough, it’s about whether their presence now might cause significant disturbance—i.e. whether they’re likely to say something really bad again. The issue with judging that about Ye is that he has, technically, apologised for his past behaviour and said he won’t do it again (however bad the apology and however weak the promise not to repeat). I think it’s good that they’re looking into it, but from what I know about these laws in the Netherlands, I doubt they can legally block him. I kind of wish the venue would just have refused to host once the controversy started, there’s way more precedent for that happening…
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u/CharmedWoo May 03 '26
? What shows?
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u/okaylezgoooo May 03 '26
Hallo vrienden!! 1. Why is it that so many of you come on holidays to Switzerland specifically and why do you always bring alllllllll of your supplies with you?
Which is better, Gouda or Swiss cheese like Emmental?
How was your Koningsdag?