Even in this current computer age, lot’s of letters are still written on paper… Either handwritten or printed. Professional letters, personal letters… letters all over the world still manage to find their way.

So, I would like to give you a little information on what to pay attention to when writing a letter in Dutch.

The business letter.

A business letter usually addresses a person like this: ‘Geachte’, which means you hold the addressee in high esteem. It shows respect.

Now, if you know this person to be male and you also know his name, for example Bruinsma, you would start the letter:

‘Geachte heer Bruinsma’ (or Geachte mevrouw Bruinsma in the case of a woman).

Now, there are also names with additives like: van, van de, van der, van den… etc.

For example: Gerrit van de Berg, Gerrit van Heukelom, Gerrit van den Berg…

As you can see, all the extra words are written with lowercases, but as soon as the first name is left away, look what happens… The first letter becomes an uppercase.

Geachte heer Van den Berg

Geachte mevrouw Van den Berg

Old fashioned language is still very common amongst lawyers and governmental institutes like ‘de Belastingdienst’(IRS).

It’s very common they start a letter addressing the person as ‘weledelgestrenge heer’ or ‘weledelgestrenge mevrouw’. And, there’s not really a good translation I think, that would capture the overblown meaning of the word ‘weledelgestrenge’.

To end a business letter in a professional and respectful way, you end with ‘hoogachtend,’ which can be translated with ‘with the highest regards’ or something like that.

The personal letter.

A personal letter is very different in lay out and tone. No need for overblown greetings and titles, just affectionate language to express your appreciation for the other person.

You can start the letter with ‘Beste …’ or ‘Lieve …’ depending on how close you are to this person (‘lieve’ is more affectionate than ‘beste’).

Of course, you only use the first name, or maybe even an affectionate pet name, but in a personal letter you leave out the family name.

You can then end the letter with ‘groetjes,’ or ‘met vriendelijke groet,’ again depending on how close you are to this person (‘groetjes’ is more affectionate than ‘met vriendelijke groet’).

In Dutch we have two words we can use in a sentence, to explain something, or give a reason. Two words that both mean ‘because’.

These two words are not synonyms, they are both used in different cases. The best way to explain this, is by giving a few small examples.

Okay, a really simple sentence:

Hij werd nat omdat het regende - He got wet because it rained.

Hij werd ziek doordat hij te veel had gegeten – He got sick because he ate too much.

So, in the first sentence I use the word ‘omdat’ and in the second sentence I use the word ‘doordat’. Can you see the difference between the two sentences? It’s very subtle and most likely the two sentences seem the same to you, because you don’t know what to look for.

Okay, ‘omdat’ is used in a sentence to explain a reason and the word ‘doordat’ is used in a sentence to explain a cause, like in cause and reaction.

You see, in the first sentence, we use ‘omdat’ because there’s a reason the ‘He’ person got wet, the reason is rain. Now, there’s probably also a cause, rain doesn’t come from nowhere, but the cause isn’t mentioned in the sentence… so, ‘omdat’.

In the second sentence, there’s a clear cause for the ‘He’ persons illness, he ate too much… since the ‘cause’ is explained in the sentence, we use ‘doordat’.

Just a few more examples to show the difference… if you have any questions, don’t hesitate to ask J

Er kwam een overstroming doordat de dijken doorbraken – There was a flood because the dykes broke through.

Ze verknoeide haar haren doordat ze de verf er te lang in liet zitten – She messed up her hair because she left in the dye too long.

Hij komt niet omdat hij ziek is – He’s not coming because he’s sick

Ze wil niet eten omdat ze overstuur is – She won’t eat because she’s upset.