How to Call a Friend a Friend in Dutch

Would you know how to call a friend a friend in Dutch? The challenge might be bigger than you think… No, we are not talking about making friends in general. That could be a good idea for another blog. But… how do you say this is my friend? If you like to say, “dit is mijn vriend,” then keep reading because you may have started spreading some false rumors that you may not like…

Tricky Pronunciation

First of all, een vriend is a friend. That one looks easy, right? But there is a tricky thing with the pronunciation. The ie in vriend sounds like ie in thief in English. Whenever you see ie in Dutch, you’ll always pronounce it like ie in thief, and vriend is no exception…

In English, you can say: ik zie een vriend; if you say ik zie een vriend, it could be the right translation. But also here there is a catch… If you say een vriend, then it must be a man… Whenever you talk about friends in English, it seems that it does not matter whether you hang out with a girl or a guy, but Dutch people are always very specific about gender.

The system is quite simple. If you say een vriend, then it means that your friend is a man. If you say vriendin, then your friend is a woman. In many other languages, this same system is common practice. For example, in Spanish, you have amigo for a male friend and amiga for a female friend. Once again, somehow, Dutch people are quite specific about this. You would never call a woman een vriend or a man vriendin under normal circumstances.

Males and Females

Let’s move on to the more interesting stuff. How would you say, “This is my friend?” If you say, “This is my vriend,” then pay attention. First, you communicated that your friend is a man, and… Mijn vriend often sounds like my boyfriend. Now you suggest that you sleep in the same bed, and no… if you are a man, the message would still sound the same.

Mijn vriend often stands for life partner, and once again, it sounds like boyfriend, and vriendin sounds like my girlfriend. For some strange, mysterious reasons, if you are a woman and talk about mijn vriendin, then nothing suspicious is going on in the Dutch mind. But.. if you are a man, then Dutch people quickly jump to the conclusion that you sleep with this person if you say mijn vriend or mijn vriendin. If you are a woman, then people will only see you in bed with someone else if you say mijn vriend, because once again, it sounds like my boyfriend…

Many people ask me how I can clearly show someone as my friend while implying that everything in our relationship is purely platonic. There is a subtle code, and it is quite simple. Here are a couple of things that you can do…

First, instead of saying mijn vriend or mijn vriendin, you can simply say: een vriend or een vriendin and if you like you can also say een vriend van mij or een vriendin van mij.

On top of that, you can also say “mijn vriend” or “mijn vriendin” and add some more information. For example, you could say, “mijn vriend uit Amsterdam,” and now, by pure magic, you have shown that your relationship has nothing to do with romance!

Warnings and Subtleties

Here is another warning for men… Make sure that you know that vrienden is the plural form of vriend and that it means friends…. It does not mean vriendin, girlfriend 😉 It is true, however, that sometimes Dutch men wonder where their real loyalty should be… de vriendin or de vrienden?

Once again, vrienden is the plural of vriend; if you have more than one vriendin, you can say vriendinnen.

Read Also: 10 Pick-Up Lines in Dutch

Making Words Smaller

Here is another thing… Have you noticed that Dutch people love to make words smaller? Instead of bier they say biertje and often they talk about het ijsje, instead of ijs (icecream). Anytime you hear a word that ends with tje or je, the meaning of the word can change a bit in Dutch. Often it means that something is nicer, warmer or really gentle…

Buddies

That is why you can turn vriend into vriendje and vriendin into vriendinnetje… If you talk about vriendje or vriendinnetje, you often use it for children, and it sounds sweet and innocent. You could say: mijn kind heeft vriendjes en vriendinnetjes op school and if you talk about a smurf for example you could say: een smurf is een blauw vriendje….

But… once Dutch people grow older, then things might change… When adults use vriendje or vriendinnetje, the meaning is often different. In many cases, it does mean that you do interesting things in bed now and then, but… it often applies that there is no real commitment. If you thought you were in a serious love relationship with a Dutch person, but if people call you een nieuw vriendje or vriendinnetje, it could be a false flag…

Now, before you start to jump to conclusions, make sure that Dutch people may use the word vriend or vriendinnetje just for fun. It may also be a person they like, and often it means they do not see that person that often. Vriendje or vriendinnetje, however, can sound very positive because it often suggests a warm and positive atmosphere and often, it also means that you can do nice things together or have some fun in many nonsexual ways….

By the way, did you know that you can have een vriendje or een vriendinnetje just for one activity? Quite often, it could also mean buddy. For example, een schaatsvriendje is a buddy you skate with, and een zwemvriendje is a person you swim with. A word you also often hear is maatje, which is the diminutive of maat (which is close to mate in English). Many Dutch people have een maatje, and if you say, “we zijn maatjes,” it means we are buddies…

Serious Friendships

Last but not least, it seems that vriend or vriendin in Dutch sounds a bit more serious than in English. In many languages, you can easily call people amigo or a friend, but somehow, in Dutch, the word vriend sounds far more serious. Some people call people een kennis – which is gender neutral – when they like them, and yet it seems that kennis – which could be acquaintance in English – is slightly less profound. It seems that somehow een vriend or een vriendin is a person that you should always be able to count on, through thick and thin, door dik en dun, and this is why some people make a clear distinction between vrienden and kennissen.

How Does it Work in Your Language?

How does it work in your language? Is it easy to call someone a friend? Share your thoughts here….

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Albert Both

Talencoach / Dutch Flow Now