Greetings in Dutch: hallo, goedemorgen, dag, doei and tot ziens

Hallo, hoi and dag: saying hello in Dutch

Hallo is the all-purpose hello and fits almost any situation, from a shop to a phone call. Hoi is its casual partner, for friends and people of the same age. Neither says anything about the time of day.

Dag deserves its own line because English has no equivalent. Wiktionary gives it two senses, hello and goodbye, both a shortening of goedendag, good day. A shop assistant may say dag when a customer comes in and dag again when the customer leaves.

The time-of-day greetings are goedemorgen, goedemiddag and goedenavond. They are a little more formal than hallo and suit a first contact, an office or a letter. In speech the d is often softened, so goedemorgen comes out as goeiemorgen; the written form stays goedemorgen.

Je or u: formal and informal greetings in Dutch

Dutch has two words for you. Je or jij is informal, u is polite, and the choice affects the next words. Thank you is dank je wel to a friend and dank u wel to a stranger; please is alsjeblieft and alstublieft, with je and u hidden inside. Wiktionary marks alstublieft as formal and lists alsjeblieft as its informal partner.

U is the safe choice with strangers, older people and in writing to an office or a company. A visitor who starts with u and lets the other person suggest je makes no mistake either way.

Many greetings in Dutch come in these two versions, and the pronoun decides which one fits. Both words for please have a second job. Alstublieft and alsjeblieft are also what a Dutch speaker says when handing something over, here you are. A cashier who passes the receipt across the counter with alstublieft is not asking for anything.

Tot ziens, doei and the other goodbyes

Tot ziens, literally until seeing, is the standard goodbye and fits every register. More specific forms name the next meeting: tot morgen, until tomorrow, or tot straks, until later today.

Doei is the casual goodbye of the Netherlands. Wiktionary labels it Netherlands Dutch, derives it from doeg, and calls it a doublet of dag; its list of synonyms adds doei-doei, houdoe, tabee and toedeloe. Because of that label, doei reads as a Netherlands word; in Flanders the short dag does the same work.

Learners often say tot ziens to a friend they will see again in an hour; it is not wrong, only a little stiff, and tot straks sounds more natural there. At night Dutch separates two meanings that English puts into good night. Goedenacht is the greeting for someone met late in the evening; welterusten, rest well, is said to someone going to sleep.

Greetings in Belgium: when goedemiddag starts

Flanders uses the same greeting words as the Netherlands, but the clock behind them differs. The language advice service of the Flemish government notes that in Belgium middag usually means the time between twelve and two, and namiddag the whole afternoon until about six; in the Netherlands middag already covers twelve to six. A Fleming who says goedemiddag at half past four is following the Belgian clock, and a Dutch speaker who answers goedemiddag at the same hour is following the Dutch one. Both are correct.

Doei is one of the few greetings tied to one side of the border: Wiktionary labels it Netherlands. Dag, hallo and tot ziens are used on both sides of the border. The Wikipedia article on Belgian Dutch describes the broader picture: the standard language is shared, and the differences sit in vocabulary, pronunciation and the colloquial tussentaal of Flanders.