Dutch greetings for beginners: u vs jij

If you're moving to the Netherlands, or you're just starting to learn Dutch, you don't need a hundred phrases to get started. You need about ten. Everything else is vocabulary you build slowly, over time, as you use the language more.

This article covers the Dutch greetings you'll actually hear. At the bakery. On your street. In a work chat. It also explains something that confuses almost every beginner: the u vs jij difference in Dutch, two different ways of saying "you."

The Dutch greetings people actually use

Hallo is your safe choice. You can say it to anyone, at any time of day, in any situation. If you only learn one greeting, learn this one.

Hoi is more casual. Use it with friends, with coworkers you already know well, or with a barista who recognizes your face.

For greetings tied to the time of day, Dutch has three main ones:

• Goedemorgen means "good morning." You use it in the morning, roughly until noon.
• Goedemiddag means "good afternoon." You use it from around noon until early evening.
• Goedenavond means "good evening." You use it once evening starts.

At the office, you'll hear someone say just "morgen" instead of the full "goedemorgen."

Worth knowing: Dutch people often shorten these time-of-day greetings in daily life. Both the full word and the short version are correct. The short version isn't lazy or rude, it's just normal, everyday speech.

To ask someone how they are doing, you say hoe gaat het? This literally means "how goes it," but you use it the same way you'd use "how are you" in English.

When you leave, there are two common options. Tot ziens is the standard, more formal way to say goodbye. Doei is the casual version. You will also often hear people say "doei doei," with the word repeated twice. This is completely normal. It's not a mistake and it doesn't mean anything extra, people just say it that way.

Here are a few short example exchanges to show how these fit together:

• You walk into a small shop in the morning. You say: "Goedemorgen!" (Good morning!) The shop owner says: "Goedemorgen, hoe gaat het?" (Good morning, how's it going?) You say: "Goed, dank je. En met u?" (Good, thank you. And with you?)
• You see a coworker in the hallway in the afternoon. You say: "Hoi, hoe gaat het?" (Hi, how's it going?) They say: "Goed hoor, en met jou?" (Good, and with you?)
• You're leaving a friend's house in the evening. You say: "Oké, ik ga. Doei!" (Okay, I'm going. Bye!) They say: "Doei doei!" (Bye bye!)

The u and jij difference, explained step by step

This is the part that confuses almost every beginner, so let's go through it slowly.

Why this exists at all

In English, there is only one word for "you." You use it for your best friend, for your boss, for a stranger on the street, and for the king, if you ever meet him. English used to have two words, "thou" for informal and "you" for formal, but "thou" disappeared from everyday English centuries ago. Because of this, English speakers today don't have a natural sense of a formal-versus-informal "you." It just doesn't exist in the language anymore.

Dutch never lost this distinction. Dutch still has two separate words for "you":

• U is the formal one.
• Jij, often shortened to je, is the informal one.

Both words mean "you." The difference isn't about grammar rules, it's about how much distance or respect you're showing the person you're talking to.

How to tell them apart in a sentence

Here's the same set of questions, asked the formal way and the informal way:

Notice that the verb itself changes slightly too ("wilt" versus "wil"), but for a beginner, the easiest thing to notice is simply which word for "you" is being used.

The last row also shows that the possessive words change too: uw (formal "your") versus jouw (informal "your"). So it's not only u versus jij, the words built on them shift as well.

Who you would say each one to

Here are some concrete scenarios, to give you a feel for it:

• You meet your partner's grandmother for the first time. You use u.
• You're talking to a doctor you've never met before. You use u.
• You're filling out a form at a government office, or speaking to the person behind the counter there. You use u.
• You're talking to someone who is clearly much older than you, and you don't know them personally. You use u.
• You're talking to a close friend. You use je or jij.
• You're talking to a coworker you see every day and already know by first name. You usually use je or jij, though this depends on the workplace.
• You're talking to a child. You use je or jij.
• You're talking to someone roughly your own age in a casual setting, like a bar or a shared house. You usually use je or jij.

The Netherlands leans informal

Here's something that surprises a lot of learners. The Netherlands, as a country, leans informal. Belgium tends to use formal Dutch more often, and for longer in a relationship. Dutch people in the Netherlands often move to "je" fairly quickly. Sometimes even in situations that might seem to call for formality elsewhere.

Because of this, a useful strategy is to start with u when you meet someone new. Especially someone older, or in a professional setting. It's a safe, respectful default. If the other person wants to be more casual, they will often say something like:

Je mag ook je zeggen.

You can also just say je.

That sentence is your signal that it's fine to relax and switch to the informal form for the rest of the conversation.

What happens if you get it wrong

Worth knowing: this isn't a serious mistake. Nobody will be seriously offended if you use the wrong one by accident, especially as a learner.

• If you use u with someone who expected je, it usually just comes across as a little too formal or distant. Not rude, just slightly stiff.
• If you use je with someone who expected u, it can come across as rude or too familiar, especially with someone older or in an official role. This is the direction to be more careful about.
• The thing that sounds the strangest to Dutch ears is switching back and forth between u and je within the same conversation. Once you pick one for a given conversation, it's best to stick with it until the conversation ends, or until the other person clearly signals that you should switch.

A few more phrases worth knowing

These come up constantly in daily life, so it's worth learning them early:

• Sorry — this one is easy, it's said the same way as in English.

If you're stuck and want to keep practicing, this one is worth learning too:

Ik spreek een beetje Nederlands.

I speak a little Dutch.

It's useful for letting someone know you're trying and would like to keep speaking Dutch.

That question about English matters more than it seems. Many Dutch people will switch to English the moment they hear a foreign accent, even in places like language cafés, where the whole point is to practice Dutch. This isn't meant as an insult. Most Dutch people speak excellent English, and switching feels efficient to them, it lets the conversation move faster. But if you're trying to learn, it means you sometimes have to actively ask the other person to keep speaking Dutch with you. Or just keep answering in Dutch yourself, even after they switch to English.

Putting it together

• Hallo works anywhere, anytime. Hoi is for people you already know.
• Goedemorgen, goedemiddag, and goedenavond cover morning, afternoon, and evening, and Dutch people often shorten them to just "morgen" and so on.
• Dutch has two words for "you": u (formal) and je / jij (informal), and the verb and possessive words change along with it.
• When in doubt, especially with someone older or in a professional setting, start with u. If they invite you to switch, move to je.
• Getting the formal/informal choice wrong isn't a serious mistake, but switching between them mid-conversation is the thing that sounds odd to Dutch ears.

Knowing phrases isn't the same as speaking

Here's the honest part. Knowing the phrases in this article will get you through a bakery order or a hallway greeting without trouble. It will not get you through an actual conversation, and it won't teach you what to do when someone answers you in a way you didn't expect.

That takes something different. It takes real listening practice and real speaking practice. It takes being corrected when you make a mistake. It takes getting stuck in the moment and working through it. There isn't a way around this part. Apps and word lists can help you learn the pieces, like the u/jij distinction covered above, but using those pieces in a live conversation is a separate skill, and it only comes from actually doing it.

If you have access to a language café or a Dutch class, that's the place to practice all of this out loud, with a real person who will respond to you in ways a book or an app never can.