Companionable. It's the most direct translation, and it's very close to how we use the word "gezellig". We just use the word a lot more frequently. The warm feeling you get when you are with friendly company, even if that's just your own company, that's what we call companionable and it's a theme that's central to Dutch culture. If you'll agree Christmas is the most companionable time of the year, I think you're very close to understanding to why the Dutch want everything to be companionable.
From the perspective of a Dutchman: same. "Gezellig" really doesn't sum up the heart of Dutch culture in the slightest - not to mention it's old, if you show up at a party and someone goes "gezellig", it's time to leave, this is your grandparents' party. Or you have some extremely boring middle class "huisje boompje beestje" ("buy a house, plant a tree, get a pet" to refer to settling down and never aspiring to anything after) friends, of course.
Given Dutch demographics and prevalence of cheap (on the world stage) and highly regarded university degrees? Quite a lot. Dutch culture was shaped by entrepreneurship more than anything else (Except maybe plausibly deniable exploitation of entire people groups up to extremely recently, a cultural trait shared by an embarassingly large number of European countries).
From the perspective of a fellow southern European living in NL, there’s definitely a different way of interpreting it.
Gezellig is also… an atmosphere, a vibe. You are sitting alone in your garden at dusk in a summer evening, there’s a cool breeze, very soft garden lights are on, just enough to let you read your book… that can be gezellig, even if you’re alone. Or you’re in a pub with 10 friends, chugging beers… also gezellig.
Dining in a southern European restaurant with bright lights… not very gezellig, you’ll probably need people around to make up for that :)
In a sense, Dutch people are more convivial than us: they can find conviviality without having people around. But that’s the point I guess: “convivial” is a limiting translation to begin with.
Oh interesting, yeah at least the dictionary seems to hit all the keywords except friendly, hitting social instead which might or might not be accurate. "Living-together-ness" would be the literal translation, which is a bit weird but if that's how it's used then at least in use it might be a lot closer than companionable.
I’ve usually translated it to “cozy” with a bit of “at ease” and “comfortable”. But, I’m an American that speaks some Dutch (all my family are from the Netherlands, but I’m born in USA), so I’m not completely fluent.
Belgian (Flemish) that speaks English. I feel that those have pretty similar meanings. Gezellig can be used when talking about groups of people though, but not sure if it is used often in that context.
My favorite word in Dutch is morning greeting: goeiemorgen. In Russian it sounds like dick-morgen which is ridiculous if you're native Russian speaker. This song (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9H-ffphZf8&ab_channel=Eurov...) even went viral in Russia because of this (goeiedag sounds like bullshit also).
P.S. Link from the post doesn't open in Russia ("Country blocked") and I had to use VPN to read it lol. It's ONGEZELLIG to block someone read article about cozy and ecologic living.
Trust me, Russian can be equally hilarious for us Dutch. Its just that Dutch is a less widely spoken language.
Blyat for example almost reads like blaat which to us is the sound a sheep makes. It also refers to blaten, talking nonsense.
The English word cunt sounds like the Dutch kunt which means can (je kunt means you can). Kunt gets censored in a popular game, even if the rest of sentence is Dutch.
Then we have German where an English listener might think bisschen means bitch, and generally an English speaker might think a German is angry while its just the sound of the language (in contrast to, say, French).
Recently, some Dutch song (I think it was Belgian?) went viral in Ukraine as well.
Anyway, as a native Dutch speaker with autism, gezellig is equal to Orwellian double speak like Russian pravda (theres other examples, too). If its gezellig for others, it might very well not be for me. Or its tokkie level (tokkie = white trash). In other words, not a word I value when others use it.
EDIT: I believe you might find this song by a comedian weird for different reasons than intended: https://youtu.be/ATdRtTtzZ3c (he is singing good morning, good afternoon, its like this: I am a customer).
Ahhhh a distant cousin to the "Scunthorpe problem" - English and Dutch are not so dissimilar after all!
Related problem I saw recently, guy called Nasser had the "ass" in his name in some game's chat replaced with the string "***" taking a very common name and making it look like he named himself perhaps the worst word in the English language. Very unfortunate.
I remember them from my recent (~2 yrs ago, wow) re-watch of TNG! Their strategy was to look helpless to trick bypassers into helping them out, since they were not clever enough to do engineering work etc themselves.
Im a native English speaker and spent 2.5 weeks in NL, by the end i was getting nauseous from all the "oo's", "ieu's", and words that my head could almost understand but not quite.
I'm from the US. I was in Amsterdam on a business trip, and I felt the same thing, but a lot faster than in 2.5 weeks. Fortunately, I found a Uruguayan steak house. I went there for dinners. The waiters were speaking Spanish, and I thought, "Yes! This feels like home!"
This started in Amsterdam in the 1990s but now also happens in regional cities. Restaurants in Breda of all places has English speaking staff. At least there is still a head waiter who speaks Dutch. I personally don't mind much.
Whenever someone on Reddit says the Netherlands is xenophobic it makes me laugh.
Equally funny to me, The French add an 'e' to Putin when referring to him, probably because Putain sounds like Putin, which is basically the french F-word, especially in its ability to be swapped out for effect like the F-word.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/putain
Apparently he's called Poutine in Quebec as well which leads to a literal "freedom fries" situation as Quebecois restaurants that serve the dish avoid mentioning it by name to avoid controversy: https://montreal.ctvnews.ca/quebec-diner-drops-poutine-from-...
The Russians residing in Russia who visit this website and express they use a VPN to access blocked content are likely to disagree with Putin and his cronies. Chances are they know what's up.
Little known fact! "Whataboutism" is an expression in English which means "I realize your example undercuts my argument, for it reveals it is not based on consistent, defensible principles, so I will just slap a label on it and declare it irrelevant to the discussion."
Interesting fact - there is a russian word for the feeling you are experiencing - when you feel bad because you understand that your opponent is having a point, you feel bad about it but instead of admitting it you are trying to be sarcastic - it is called "prigorayet" and is always associated with burning sensation just below your lower back.
I'm not trying to be sarcastic, in my experience my definition is actually spot on.
My opinion on the conflict in Ukraine is that one crooked state is fighting another, each side is fighting dirty, and neither side deserves my tax money for it. And I especially will not cheer on yet another conflict that the US has its dirty fingers in.
But calling it genocide is either hysteria or outright propaganda. We're not talking Rwanda here.
For the rest of your comment: get better at modeling your opponents before you psychoanalyze their feelings.
As a foreigner 10 years into living in the Netherlands, I find this article a bit shallow. Yes gezellig is a word and concept I frequently encounter but to say it encompasses the heart of Dutch Culture makes no sense to me. I think only someone who hasn't spent a lot of time with Dutch people would say something like that.
Sort of like saying the word "awesome" encompasses the heart of American culture.
Its a type of fluff article that you can find about many mundane words from around the world, trying to make them into some wonderful concept that's just what the US is missing.
I guess the authors of such articles need to pay their bills too, but it's a bit surprising to see one on here.
I was just blown away. So many lovely, uplifting, funny, true-feeling storylines, balanced so well, leading to a satisfying and greater-plot-relevant conclusion and an absolutely perfect musical finale singalong (Bob Marley’s “Three Little Birds”) to wrap it in a bow.
And (spoiler) no sex or drugs, teases to the contrary notwithstanding (not that there’s anything wrong with sex or drugs, but that’s not what this show is about).
Nope, that was episode 6, the season will have 12 episodes.
It's a streaming show, so they're not bound to specific episode lengths. If they have a story that warrants longer, they have the ability to stretch it. I think that's great.
I wonder if this is written by an actual Dutch person. About half the examples make no sense, they are using the word it as an adjective for people, something I don't think I've seen Dutch people(including myself) do
Also the author complains of the overcommercialization of the Danish Hygge, pretty sure gezellig is there already.
As a Dutch person, worth pointing out that we Dutch people like using words in an ironic sense. So using the word gezellig in situations are anything but gezellig is ironic and therefore something people might do. But it adds to the confusion.
But basically it usually refers to situations, locations, or meetings of people being either gezellig (enjoyable, agreeable, etc.) or the opposite, ongezellig.
Is that irony really just a defining characteristic of gezellig? Thinking of 'leuk', or 'lekker dan', 'joepie', 'mooi is dat', and probably many others, or in English 'great', 'just perfect'.
Nice that you mention "lekker", that means something like "tasty" or "nice" but it can also ooze sarcasm and be used to turn just about anything into a sneer.
So using the word gezellig in situations are anything but gezellig is ironic
For me (in Belgium) I hear and use it in that ironic/mocking sense way more often. Whereas indeed in the Netherlands it is super common to use it in the normal sense.
Yet, you would not assume the word gemoedelijk is used in an ironic or sarcastic context. Often its used to ensure it is explained positive. The atmosphere in the Arena of the match Ajax - Feyenoord is gemoedelijk vs (ouderwets) gezellig.
And sometimes, things can be too gezellig. Like hanging out in a karaoke bar. Or going to a Dutch music festival (Piratenfestival). Not really my cup of tea, way "te gezellig".
The Dutch would be crazy not to package up their gezellig coffeeshop and brown cafe culture, decor, and furniture in shipping containers for export, and deploy them in American states and other countries that have legalized cannabis, the same way the Irish package and ship entire prefabricated pubs around the world.
Many people got that hygge book, but it's funny when you actually go to Denmark and find out most of it is actually made up. Hygge is real, but it's being pushed way more now that it's become a global word.
I got a taste of this pop-culture version in my corner of the world a few years ago, where apparently it meant furniture in all white, fake white bricks on the walls and, above all, offensive amounts of 3000-4000K light from LEDs.
Huh. In that case, I'd say "Gezellig" is pretty gnarly[1].
[1]: "gnarly" being one of those English words that can mean almost anything depending on context. In particular, similar to "Gezellig" it can mean both something like "very good / excellent" AND "horrible/bad". It's also frequently used to mean something like "difficult/dangerous/challenging".
On the topic "untranslatable words that express a culture" here are my favourites:
- Italian: words that express refined craftsmanship: sprezatura, virtuoso, capo-lavoro, affresco, al-dente, allegro/adagio, ...
- French: life must be appreciated to its full: joie-de-vivre, bon-vivant, coquette, lingerie, gourmet, finesse, chic, ..
- Japanese: a very sharp capability to appreciate what others can't: wabi-sabi, umami, satori, ...
- English: a very ingrained respect for democracy and its values: accountability, grassroots/astroturf, pork-barrel, bullying, harassment, lobying, ...
- German: a clear eyed perception that the world is dangerous and mean: torchlusspanic, schadenfreude,...
- Brazilian Portuguese: all that matters are emotional and physical connections: cafuné, xamego, sacanagem, ...
I don't know most of these languages, but I'm not so sure about some of your English examples. I don't think "accountability", "bullying", and "harassment" are that untranslatable.
Whether a word is untranslatable very much depends on the language you're translating to. "Schadenfreude" translates quite directly to "leedvermaak" in Dutch, even though English has no word for it (therefore adopting it as a loan word).
Personally, I've never really found a word in another language that encompasses the same meaning and connotation as "gezellig", though there are close contenders (like "hygge" in Danish). There are also words I know of in other languages that are in the same category, describing a feeling or perception that's impossible to explain (and may be shaped by culture as much as language).
There are definitely English words that have the same problem, but they're still quite rare.
Sure, I'd need to know all languages in the world to say which are untranslatable or not.
But what I can say is that these languages introduced these words, perceptions, themes and discourses into worldwide discussion.
In Latin-derived languages the English words I mentioned are either directly imported or very new. One example: in Spanish and Portuguese the word "assedio" has appeared as a substitute for harassment. But this is a very recent phenomenon, until recently wife-beating wasn't even a crime in some Spanish/Portuguese speaking countries.
I checked a couple of bilingual dictionaries, and found your insight interesting that it looks like there is no precise direct translation for "bullying" in French or Spanish, but only multi-word translations like those in the submitted article.
In French, there is "harcèlement" for harassment, but according to WordReference.com, the closest one-word translations for bullying are "harcèlement" or "intimidation" (which appear closer to harassment and intimidation in English) [1]. Similarly, according to SpanishDictionary.com, the closest translation of bullying is the Anglicism "el bullying," with "intimidación" also used as a close but not exact equivalent [2].
Similarly, the closest equivalent to "accountability" according to WordReference is "responsabilité," with Spanish similarly using "responsabilidad" as its closest equivalent according to SpanishDictionary. Perhaps "responsabilité" and "responsabilidad" can carry the same connotations as the English word for "accountability" depending on the context, but it's true that there are no entries for standalone words in French or Spanish in these dictionaries that carry the exact associations as "accountability" in English.
From the article, though cozy may be a rough translation, I see the author's point that cozy can't be a direct, precise translation.
The author writes that Oprah Winfrey is "gezellig," but it's a bit awkward to say that a person is "cozy." The English usage is correct to say that a person is "comforting." The author also writes that cheering on a sports team is "gezellig," along with going out in the evening with friends. But these activities seem high-energy to me, so "comforting" doesn't feel quite right (where as "gezellig" would feel completely right).
So, "gezellig" looks like a sentiment that is a mixture of "warm, comforting, and at-home," which can describe a person and also activities that are active and not necessarily passive. It's translatable, so I disagree with the author's premise that the word "gezellig" can't be translated, as the word is clearly translated by the author with abundant examples. However, I agree with the author's impression that a single English word cannot define the term.
I'm not familiar with "gezellig". The word "gemütlig" means roughly "comfortable", "comforting", "nice", and can be applied equally to a person or an environment. But it seems to have a particular resonance in German, possibly because Germans prize gemütligkeit very highly.
[Edit] Maybe that explains them having two words for it?
Not Dutch, but I speak a language that has a similar word, with the same meaning: "gesellig".
Look at the first picture in TFA. That's gesellig. Having coffee on a busy terrace on a sunny day is gesellig.
Spending time in front of a fireplace while it rains outside is cozy, not gesellig. Unless, as the article points out, you have friends over that are gesellig.
It shares a root with "gesels" which means "to chat". And you have the word "geselskap" which is similar to "audience", but used in a more social context.
Gesellig is all about having a good time with a fun crowd. Cozy can be this too, but it's more restrictive I think. Playing a drinking game while in you underwear in the snow might not be cozy, but it's sure as hell gesellig!
From what I can tell you're talking about Afrikaans here. I think the words are extremely similar, if not the same, and that makes sense with Afrikaans being largely derived from an older Dutch dialect. The word "gesellich" was present in Dutch already in 1240 according to Wiktionary, so Afrikaans will have inherited the word from Dutch with much of the same meaning. Perhaps it's even exactly the same!
I would describe spending time in front of a fireplace while it rains outside to be cozy (or "knus" in Dutch) as well, not gezellig. However, you could describe the fireplace and the room it's in as gezellig.
I'm not sure if I'd call that a translation, though, because of how the languages have evolved. I wouldn't call color and colour translations of each other, and gesellig and gezellig are similarly close in written form and etymological history.
In contrast, I find it interesting that the meaning of "gesels" and "geselskap" in Afrikaans is so different from "gezel" and "gezelschap" in Dutch. A "gezel" is a friend, mate, or some other person who stands with you; a gezelschap is a group of gezellen. I'm not aware of any similar verb ("vergezellen", perhaps, which means "to accompany"). Sadly, the Afrikaans Wiktionary is not as complete as the Dutch Wiktionary so I can't easily verify the exact relationships between these words.
You are right about my language, it's indeed Afrikaans :)
Interestingly, we also have the word knus, totally forgot about it. We also have "snoesig", which is used to describe being tucked in or wrapped in a blanket.
So your description of geselskap (group of gezellen) is EXACTLY what geselskap means. Its a group of good or fun people, sometimes friends but not always. We don't have the concept of "gezel" though. Interestingly we also have the concept of bad (slegte) geselskap, which describes when you associate with the "wrong kind of people".
We ALSO have vergesel, which is the verb for accompany. We have "metgesel", which is the noun given to the person accompanying you i.e. escort/chaperone or date.
So for those who are not native Dutch and Afrikaans: in the 1650s the Dutch came to South Africa and started a colony. Over the centuries the Dutch dialect this side changed and picked up all sorts of words from local and other imported languages. In the early 1900s it oficially became it's own language. For a long time before that it was known as "kitchen Dutch" among other things, as it was the creole spoken by the slaves and servants of the Western Cape colonists. It's trivial for me to read and comprehend Dutch text, and a speaker only needs to slow down a little and I can follow what's being said well enough.
I'm no native speaker, so correct me if I'm wrong here. I think "knus" is a much better translation of "cosy", and in some instances knus and gezellig can be used as synonyms. As far as I can tell "cosy" is generally associated with warmth, while that's not necessarily a requirement for something to be gezellig.
- I don't think you can say someone has a cosy personality
- I don't think you can say "how cosy for you to be here" or "let's keep it cosy in here" when the mood is turning sour
- I don't think you would call going shopping with a group of friends cosy
- I'm not sure if you can have a cosy conversation, but maybe you can?
The word has a similar origin and definitely works as a translation for one of the uses of gezellig, but it doesn't cover the entire definition. It helps that the languages are so closely related but they're different enough that I wouldn't call it a translation.
The inverse is true of many Dutch words with a common German origin as well. We straight-up imported "überhaupt" because there's no commonly used, single word that expresses the same particular thing (other than another loan word).
I must admit that I've spent a lot of time walking up Scottish mountains in fairly dreich conditions - just makes me appreciate how utterly glorious this wee country is when it's not being dreich. :-)
Edit: From the comments on that BBC article:
Glasgow woman sits in the dentist's chair.
"Comfy?" says the dentist.
"Govan" says the woman.
Edit2: When I was a child I would have asked where someone was from by saying: "Far are ye fae"....
I tend to agree. Im not Dutch, but my language has the same word.
My understanding is that craic means to have a good time with good people, and that's exactly what gesellig is.
Gesellig might have broader application in this context though, as an event can be gesellig, a person can be gesellig. It's am adjective. It seems craic is used for all sorts of other terms which do not apply here.
About the feeling of missing something, somebody or past times and complaining about the inevitability of it. Why? Portugal is a country of explorers, settlers and lost territories.
But we (English speakers) are not above ripping off untranslatable words from other languages. At work I used to talk about fingerspitzengefühl and schwerpunkt; we didn't even bother trying to translate them to English. And everyone I know knows about schadenfreude and zeitgeist and "je ne sais quoi."
Maybe we do have translations for them. Maybe the English word for schadenfreude is "schadenfreude." (But yes, if you want to say I'm cheating, that's fine.)
"Undercooked" means "cooked too little", al-dente is not "cooked too little", it's "cooked enough" in order to be al-dente. I guess you could say al-dente is more "not cooked too much" instead. Personally I cannot stand pasta that is not al-dente.
(I'm not Italian, this is wild speculation)
I think it directly translates to something like "to the tooth", so I always imagine it meaning a food having a certain kind of "bite".
It simply means that you feel a degree of resistance or firmness when you bite an al dente piece of food, ie. it has a "tooth feel" unlike soft, fully cooked starchy things.
An engineer might say that al dente has more shear strength left than fully cooked.
I am a native English speaker, and may be wrong about this, but I believe that the use of "de nada" from Spanish, and "de rien" in French to mean "you're welcome" suffer from similar loss in translation. Do not the former phrases imply that thanks is not needed?
A close English idiom might be "Don't worry about it" or "no problem" in the place of "you're welcome." Even "You're welcome" implies this as in "You're welcome [to ask for such a favor in general]"
That is an interesting implied addendum. However, there still seems to be an acknowledged favor granted, while the French and Spanish phrases I understand to mean that no favor was granted and no thanks are needed.
Languages are fascinating! German has an almost identical word ("gesellig" - https://dict.leo.org/german-english/gesellig), but with a different meaning that can easily be translated as "sociable" (referring to a person) most of the time. Looks like the Dutch extended it to places that encourage being sociable?
Similarly, Germans might find the Dutch usage of "lekker" (lit. "tasty", same root of German "lecker") quite... inconsiderate: it of course applies to food, but it's way common to use it for relaxing, enjoyable activities (you can sleep and sit "lekker", and something can also "go lekker" - meaning it goes well).
At least, that's what I made out of, but I welcome a proper explanation from a native speaker!
Actually in the part of Germany next to the Dutch border, "lecker" already starts being used that way. For example, someone from Cologne might call a nice girl/woman a "lecker Mäd(s)che" (https://verliebtinkoeln-com.translate.goog/die-bedeutung-von...).
hahaha well for dutch the way Germans use Geil (horny) is quite funny, using it 5 times per conversation for things you like is quite normal for Germans.
What makes it even funnier is it even means horny in German. The young kids just turned it into meaning "cool". So now you have 40+ year olds saying how horny a presenation is in a corporate board room.
In English, "sexy" is routinely applied to things that are not, literally, sexy, including in many business contexts, and largely for cases in which "cool" would work just as well (especially before the meaning of the word "cool" became a bit diluted). A sexy car, a sexy logo, a sexy pivot table—potentially none of them having anything to do with sex, in fact, it just means "cool" (they may be sex-adjacent in some sense, sure, but only in the same way that "cool" things generally are—in this usage, the words are basically interchangeable).
We've got "to get a hard on for" (or, "to get wet for") used for "likes very much", in "low" English registers. A bit less politely, perhaps (I don't have a read on exactly how offensive this usage is? If it is at all?) "to be gay for", as in "Tim's gay for Zelda games" is somewhat common. May have originated with or been popularized by South Park? Not sure. Though, unlike "sexy", none of those are common in business outside incredibly-brotastic environments.
Agreed. We use sexy same way in dutch (we use a lot of english words, and sex is a dutch word so sexy also feels dutch). But first of all, it's still not something official, and not often used in professional settings. In german, Geil has become the standard way to say "cool" or even acknowledge something.
At the same time in Dutch, we use it also, exactly the same word "Geil" with exactly the same sexual meaning, but for us it has a bit of a dirty feeling.
I had conversation with Germans: "oh that means horny for us", they: "yeah for us too".
As well as I find Horny in itself a bit more invasive then sexy.
I can understand the bit about the "special sale" being funny in context, but the two liner completely passed me by.
My extremely limited German translates "gespart" to "saved", and "Wochen" to "weeks". I'm guessing that the two liner actually translates into something like "Have you come? / Weeks ago", but I'm having trouble wrapping my head around it.
The scene is also funny because the person who mentions its on sale isn't attractive (at least, in my opinion) yet they're informed. Its a clever trick, given the goal was to prevent HIV spreading by promoting condom usage among the German people. I'm not even sure why I remember the commercial. Probably because I'm from a Dutch area where people watch a lot of German TV (not our household though).
With regard to the other quote: a man cannot save sperm for weeks, he'll have a wet dream eventually, after approx one week. So its either a straight up lie, an overstatement / white lie, someone who doesn't know such (though we don't know if the person asking knows such or sees through it), or its taken honestly and literally (he's saved up, but who knows how full the bucket is). Since we both have autism, I suppose we go for the last explanation.
Languages need words with specific meaning, and also words that are broad and vague. "lekker" is in the same category as "nice" in English. The imprecision is useful sometimes.
Yes convivial is the perfect translation for gezellig. I don't understand why articles about gezelligheid always claim that it is somehow untranslateable!
Gemoedelijk is probably the Dutch word which is linguistically related to the one you mention. Interestingly, it has no megative connotation, but it won't be a word used much in randstad (the densely populated ~West of The Netherlands). So it is by definition not as popular as gezellig.
> be translated as "sociable" (referring to a person) most of the time.
Gesellig is also used for occasions, like a geselliger Abend as also listed on the Leo link. In Switzerland it's sometimes also used for places like a geselliges Restaurant. From that perspective I use the German word in pretty much the same way.
Side note: The adjective likely comes from "Gesellschaft," which can mean "society" but also "company."
Interesting… seems that Dutch gezellig is something similar to the Danish notion of hygge, but without the sense of “an almost pathological taste for Poul Henningsen lamps as a means to tame whatever it was that drove Danish men to spend their lives Viking across the Atlantic”.
But then my experience in Denmark was very narrowly spent with my ex-wife’s family there, so maybe I’d have gotten hygge with it eventually.
My favorite Dutch eyes is Swaffelen (or zwaffelen or dick-slap) is a Dutch term meaning to hit one's soft or semi-hard penis - often repeatedly - against an object or another person's body. Swaffelen was named as the word of the year in the Netherlands and Belgium in 2008.
Yes. I can't take the "untranslatable" claim for good fish when the article doesn't address this obvious objection: Any Norwegian or Danish reader can see that it's the same word as "koselig", likely even etymologically.
The article makes an impression that "gezellig" is somewhat close to French "savoir-vivre", "la vie est belle", Italian "dolce vita", and maybe even Latin "carpe diem"?
It looks like multiple cultures have similar appreciation to spending one's time well, but also focus on different aspects of what "well" means.
> The article makes an impression that "gezellig" is somewhat close to French "savoir-vivre", "la vie est belle", Italian "dolce vita", and maybe even Latin "carpe diem"?
I don't speak those languages, but I don't think those words are an apt translation. The word doesn't really describe a way of life, or the enjoyment of life in particular, it's more of a vibe or an emotional state or an emotional association to a certain place, event, or situation. The English word "convivial" seems to come pretty close, though from the example sentences I can find I still think the meaning is slightly different.
I find it quite difficult to accurately describe my perception of the word "gezellig" without anecdotes of shared experiences. I believe savoir-vivre and dolce vita are similar in that way; there are direct translations, but they all miss some element of what the original meant.
No, "gezellig" is like just being with a bunch of friends having fun. Everybody is happy talking to each other, mood is great, maybe some food and drinks available.
At least as a native that's how I always interpret it. It's always in a setting with people.
"Woord van het jaar 2008" Swaffelen (of zwaffelen) is het aantikken met de penis, vaak met herhaalde bewegingen, van andermans lichaam of een voorwerp.
'derived' isn't the correct term here possibly. More like they both derive from the same common term 'gezel' (which is also a word on it's own meaning 'buddy' or 'fellow traveller' or 'fellow worker'). In gezel-lig the 'lig' is for making it an adjective. In gezel-schap the 'schap' ('schaft' in German) indicates something like 'more people' or 'company'.
Lekker ("tasty") and leuk ("fun") are similar when used in a vague sense, though when you use which word is hard to describe. I think the difference is similar to "liberty" and "freedom" in English: they mean pretty much the same thing, but you wouldn't say "liberty of speech".
Gezellig is different, it doesn't just mean "good" or "nice", it evokes a very specific feeling.
While lekker is tasty, it can be used to say 'lekker weertje' to refer to nice weather. Same for 'leuk kleurtje' which means nice color. Do note that inost of the cases the diminutive form with - tje is used
To me, gezellig(heid) could never happen without the company of others, as opposed to leuk and lekker (the latter being the biggest outlier to me, just describing food or perhaps physical attractiveness of a person).
There's no such thing as "untranslatable words", and every text which claims existence of one, immediately translates it. The linked story is no different, of course.
The problem with translations is that they are not a 1:1 mapping. When you translate, you look for a word with a similar meaning. For some words there simply isn't a close-enough word in the target language to be meaningful.
It is like trying to map integers to floats. You can get a close approximation, but a conversion doesn't always make sense.
Translation is not a process of mapping a word (language A) to a word (language B). Translation is by dictionary definition a process of expressing sense/meaning of text with a different language. If a Dutch word can be only exressed by a full page of text in English, it's just fine, it's still translation! The correct CS analogy is therefore not float to int conversion, but transpiling Pascal to ASM: the fact that one call in the former requires a bunch of assembler commands doesn't mean it's untranslatable.
Yeah it’s a different word but the meaning seems very close if it can be substituted in 95%+ of contexts. Curious to hear an example where it doesn’t fit.
I have a connection to both American and Dutch cultures and the the feeling is very different. People have tried to describe it in words but it’s a feeling that is contextually inferred and hard to completely describe in words without being reductionist. Dutch people on this thread are correct in pushing back. This is what ChatGPT says — which is more or less on on the right track:
“No, "chill" and "gezellig" are not the same.
"Chill" is an English term used to describe a relaxed and easy-going atmosphere or situation. It can refer to a person's demeanor, a social setting, or an activity that is low-key and stress-free.
"Gezellig" is a Dutch term that is difficult to translate directly to English, but it generally refers to a cozy and convivial atmosphere or feeling of togetherness. It can refer to a physical space, a social gathering, or a mood. It is often associated with warmth, comfort, and hospitality, and is an important aspect of Dutch culture.”
Okay, sounds like you're making a completely subjective assessment, based on your own preferences. Totally fine, but does not mean I'm wrong. One thing that would really help would be if there were a definitive case where it did not fit.
Do you speak Dutch? Anyway that 95% number seems also fetched from your personal experience, because the meaning of 'chill', in my experience, is just too different for that.
Here's an example which (again, for me) doesn't quite fit: when talking about a party with music and dancing and saying it is 'chill' we'd mean that it was relaxed, enough space to dance, no drunk idiots, fun overall, and so on. We might add to it that it was 'gezellig', not use instead, but then we'd mean there were also lot of friends around and/or new friends being made. While there's a link with being chill, they could just as well be orthogonal. Like 'it was gezellig but too bad it was so crowded' means it wasn't chill at all.
Thanks for providing an example, that's what I was wondering about. I don't need to speak Dutch to make a valid argument, based on the synonymous examples already observed, that is a genetic fallacy. Yes, 95% number was contrived for the sake of conversation, based on the article. ChatGPT estimated it's actually around 70%. Sounds like its meaning is incredibly nebulous but maybe a blending of chill and friendly.
I think one major difference is that it’s easy to chill on your own.
It’s really hard for something to be gezellig when you are alone, it almost always refers to the people around you, or a location that you’d be happy to meet people. Like, an empty house or cafe is basically never gezellig.
My god I never expected that would be so hard to explain.
Yeah, you can be cozy on your own, which is why it’s not a perfect translation.
Like, you could go by yourself to a little out of the way cottage, hearthfire burning, super cozy! But it’s not gezellig, because there’s no other people involved.
Did you mistake me, or did I somehow come off as excessively self-righteous?
