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How could we possibly expect to make a list of stuff Dutch people like and not include this perplexing little guttural-sounding word at the top of the list!
You will quickly learn that Dutch people like love this word. They are fiercely proud of this word and all it represents. I would go as far to say that gezelligheid is the modern day religion of the Dutch. They love it, they need it and they respect it.
In fact, Dutch folk are going to ask you over and over again if you know what gezellig means. Once you do know it’s meaning, they are then going to ask you over and over again if you know how to pronounce it. Learn to love it too, because you won’t escape it (or its pronunciation), and you will soon seen that gezelligheid truly is all around you.
For those of you not yet knowing what gezellig means, let’s get one thing straight: this word has NO accurate English translations. Yes, it’s a sad fact my friends, but it’s true. People will try and try again to tell you that it means cozy… or quaint… or familiar…or friendly… or a nice atmosphere… or a fun time, but you get where this is going; no one word can really sum it up. Gezellig and gezelligheid are less about a word and more about a feeling. Yes, this is starting to sound all chakras-and-healing-crystals to you, but truthfully, gezellig(heid) can only really be felt.
You can say that again!
Things do get even trickier to comprehend, because Dutch people tend to evaluate everything on its particular level of gezelligheid. A place can be gezellig, a room can be gezellig, a person can be gezellig, an evening can be gezellig. Christ, even childbirth can be rated by its gezellig-ness (my doctor once told me she preferred home births, simply because they were, “well… just more gezellig”)!
But as we all know, there are two sides to every coin. True to its form, meet ongezellig, gezellig‘s nasty twin brother. Again, ongezellig is a precise astute word like no other. “Let’s get out of this place, its just so ongezellig” can sum it up like nobody else can.
I’ll never forget taking an impromptu boat ride with a friend of mine and her family. After an hour spin and a stop by a canal-side restaurants for a nibble, we docked the boat as her 3 year old Dutch son turned to me, clasped his hands together and sighed while saying “ge-zel-lig”! Truth be told, it was the only word that accurately summed up our day. And even a 3 year-old knew it.
How does it differ from ‘comfortable’? I tried putting that word in place every time you wrote ‘gezzelig’ and the article still seemed to make sense.
Comfortable still doesn’t quite cut it. It has a calm, homey quality.
However, a lively party or an animated chat can also be gezellig – not really situations that would be described as “comfortable”.
In my opinion, gezellig mostly depends on people. Being all alone would never be described as gezellig, even if you’re comfortable. You need (the right) company for a place or a situation to be gezellig.
I agree it mostly depends on people, but it is possible to be alone and be “gezellig” e.g. if one’s house qualifies as such. I’m Dutch, my American wife tried to understand the “gezelligheid” concept. This is about nine years ago and we were in the NL watching the news about a village where the surroundings were completely flooded and, if not for an impromptu dike of sandbags, the village itself would have been flooded. They were interviewing a local woman who described living there at that moment as rather “gezellig”. At the point my wife knew she would never quite understand the concept. It is most definitely not the equivalent of “comfortable”.
One book described it for me like a scene where people start getting more relaxed, more open, conversations can deepen, and you reach that point where there is an open atposphere and mutual understanding that’s beyond words. You get connected at a deeper level, from heart to heart.
Making things “meer gezellig” means the new arrangement/decoration would easen that process of making people feel more comfortable and relaxed around.
You can also be comfortable alone on a couch that’s not gezellig
Well, comfortable is the same as the Dutch word ‘comfortabel’, which has little to do with gezellig or gezelligheid. Read the article, it can’t be translated!
Gemütlich, Mysigt, Hyggeligt and Koseligt are just the spot-on Germanic and Scandinavian translations. And yes, Swedes rate quite a few things by how “Mysigt det var” while the Norwegians and Danes talk about things being “veldigt hyggeligt”.
Apart from that, I would say “Cozy” is a spot-on translation to English. No more no less. Cozy implies all of the things that gezellig invokes. Then possibly “Gregarious” or the Swedish “Sällskapligt” would work as well.
The notion that “gezelligheid” isn’t translatable is an urban myth that is kept alive by the Dutch simply because they don’t know diddley about other cultures. I’m not saying we’re alone in that, but we are quite human in this regard.
Reminds me of my Swedish ex who wanted to make something “Typically Swedish” for Christmas, so she did a Risgrynsgröt. My mother busted out laughing and pointed out she’d been making the same Rijstebrij for the past 60 years with cinnamon and butter. This goes to show that what you may think is unique to your culture might be borrowed or simply ubiquitous.
Cozy refers to comfortable and a nice atmosphere instead of a certain moment.
A room can also be gezellig by the way it is furnished, A party can be gezellig. A dinner can be gezellig. You can have a gezellig chat with a friend, etc, No cozy does not cut it, but it is the closest we have in the English Language. I was born and raised in the Netherlands but have now live in the US for 40 years and am a teacher. There is no word exactly like gezellig. Lekker is another that does not have a translation! It can mean delicious, but you can also have a lekkere walk.
Totally true, its just arogant to say it is not translatable. Words that you can,t translate are taken over in otter languages. Apartheid is a example of that.
I wouldn’t call a ‘vette dikke feest’ comfortable, no matter how gezellig it was.
* “vet dik feest”
literal translation:
fat fat party
technically it’s not fat fat party, it’s fat obese party
A recent example: Last week I hosted Dutch friends (father + daughter) at my house who were on holiday. Because she was 14 yrs., I assumed that she would want separate sleeping quarters from her father, so I made her a bed in a separate guest room. When I showed her to her room, she asked me if she could sleep in the same room with her father. When I asked her why she would want to try and cram this mattress into a small (read: uncomfortable) space, she replied: “Het is meer gezellig!” (It is more gezellig).
I’ve looked up the word ‘gezellig’ in the online dictionary and they’ve come up with: cosy, snug, snugly, cosily, pleasant, sociable, chatty. However, as a Dutch person with English speaking friends, I’ve come to the conclusion that there is no English word to describe ‘gezellig’. All the translations are apt to a different situation, but none are appropriate for how we Dutch use the word ‘gezellig’ in every situation
. Often I find myself looking for the right word to describe the feeling I have when talking or meeting with English speaking friends, when if I were with Dutch speaking friends I would say: It was ‘gezellig’. I think ‘gezellig’ should be used in every language LOL.
het is meer gezellig doesn’t exist, maybe she said: het is gezelliger
In dutch the comparisons can have both forms, what can be handy for foreigners, when they are irregular, just by adding more or most to it. One might consider it as ‘messy’, however, one can also see it as ‘… gezellig’…
I’m an American who has been living in NL for 13-years. “Gezellig” is not translatable into English.
It means more than “cosy” or “comfortable”. Like you said it’s a feeling… No -one- word encapsulates the feeling.
grinnn yes there is one word for it:
Gezellig
just spread it around the world and embrace the feeling.. and there will be no more translation problems
..
we dutchies will correct all people that use it for situations that are not qualified as gezellig. after a few centuries of correcting people (see the article on dutch directness and you know we won’t hesitate to do so haha) people will know what it means..
i think the main differnce is how people learn a language.. i do notice that most foreigners insist on finding a translation, instead of simply accepting the word without knowing its exact meaning.. when you have heard it enough, it will become more and more clear when its suitable and when not.. How else would a todler know when something is ‘gezellig’ and not.. You don’t think its parents hold up pictures everynight and whispering to the kid ‘gezellig’ ‘ongezellig’.. the kid simply absorbs the word and in combination with that current situation/mood/company etc. then it learns visiting grandma can be ‘gezellig’ but in other circumstance it might not be, or even ‘ongezellig’..
It may not be translatable into English, but, the Dutch are not the only ones who have this concept. I think the German “gemutlich” (with the umlaut missing here) is pretty much the same. The Danes have something that, if I remember correctly, sounds something like “hugele” or “hugelich” and they have similar debates with English speakers about how untranslatable it is.
Well, actually the meaning of “gemütlich” is not as broad as the meaning of “gezellig”, I’d say, but fortunately “gesellig” is a German word as well.
‘selig in yiddish, too, and it’s even a common name for boys
The Danish version is “hygge” – also unpronounceable and hard to translate. It has roughly the same meaning, but with more connotations of warm home and hearth. Interestingly, hygge is actually a Norwegian word (you can tell by the double-g) but the Danes have really taken it and run with it.
As far as I know, “convivial” most closely approximates the meaning of gezellig. However, gezellig is a staple of the Dutch language whereas the use of convivial is relatively rare.
One of my favourite Dutch words is “schemerlamp”, it oozes atmosphere.
A schemerlamp is utterly gezellig
Yup, convivial comes pretty close, I think. I have Darren Criss to thank for knowing that word
.
Gezellig = convivial
Grew up in the UK, been living in the NL for 16 years now, and this is the best i’ve heard so far!
I’m Dutch, but lived in the US for a while. Often tried to explain it to Americans and the closest one of my colleagues ever got was “warm and fuzzy”.
The word gezellig is derived from the noun ‘gezel’, which means companion. Gezelligheid in it’s core meaning is something shared between people.
However, the semantics of the word has shifted so that also situations, objects or whatever that do not necessarily inmpy company can be described as gezellig.
this whole get-together is starting to become really gezellig!
Just stumbled upon your blog and enjoyed reading it and the comments! I’m Dutch but having been living abroad for years.
This converstion about how to describe the word can is Kinda gezelig right?
I’m a Dutchy living in Australia for the past 17 years. Aussies do not understand this word. However, Princess Mary of Denmark (the one that married Prince Frederick and is of Australian background) quite often tries to describe this word when talking about the Danish people. So I think it is not utterly Dutch but maybe also Danish! Having said this, the Dutch gezelligheid is unique!! I still miss it to this day. (even though I think there is a lot of gezelligheid here also if that makes sense)
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Hi SDPL,
I’m a South African and we have the same word in Afrikaans (an Anglicized version of Dutch) and it means the same thing – nothing in particular – and gets used often. Gesellig (as it is pronounced in Afrikaans) can mean cosy, comfortable, chatty, nice etc etc.
Can’t wait to visit Amsterdam in Winter this year
A
“Gezelligheid” is in translation the thug that awaits you in a dark alley with a dripping knife.
Adding to the confusion, there is also the more familiar word, “gezelli”, without the “g” at the end, meaning: Gezellig gezellig op een gezellige manier, what means so much as cosy being together in a cosy way, or being cosy at yourself, like me at this moment all alone with my ashtray and beer before the computer (and my desk in a state of medium messiness).
Translated back to latin, “gezel” (from which it is a derivative) means “socius” or “compagnion”. I guess it would result in some horror like “compagnionshipmentness” in translation, or to go from bad to worse, “compagnionshipmentnessness” or (from worse to worst) “compagnionshipmentnessnnessabitily” what would translate back to “gezelligerheid”. Although I am sure you are not going to make friends at scrabble with that last one (or even if it fits) and risk being put outside with the cat (that could be used as a symbol of “gezelligheid”), in a language that is as gezellig (compagnable) as dutch (including the cat and the stove) one can use it fairly riskless in compagnionship(mentness).
I admit, “compagnionshipmentness” sounds like a medical threat, I guess that after two centuries of (ab)use one might hardly notice the difference.
@Nick: I have tested “convivial” to destruction and it makes a chance, even in the negative.
I’m Dutch and gezellig is a lot of the feelings mentioned above, but the bottom line is that you feel totally at ease. That’s why a place can also be described as niet (not) gezellig: let’s get out of here, it’s not gezellig here.
There is an other country that has its own word for gezellig and uses it in the same way. In Thailand they say ‘sanuk’. I once stayed there for 5 months and always knew exactly when to use this qualification cuz its exactly the same as gezellig. And the Thai thought it was very sanuk I understood what sanuk is all about:)
Yesss… “feeling totally at ease” is the only right translation of the word “gezellig”!
I can feel “totally at ease” on a deserted beach, watching the sunset … but that would not necessarily be “gezellig”.
Therefore, “totally at ease” is not a translation for “gezellig”.
Only the Dutch use that word with that intangible connotation that annoys us foreigners so much. So, let’s just give the Dutch that word, leaving them behind, bathing in ‘gezelligheid’ … and let’s move on.
Frank
Thank you for your clear answer (you could be Dutch!)
Next time you go back to that deserted beach, go and watch the sunset with a “metgezel” (best friends or someone you love)…take a bottle of champagne… a guitar… a warm blanket… sing together…
Then you might come close to the feeling we are talking about
Ah yes wilhelminavictoria … my point exactly: you have to be with at least one other person to have it “gezellig”. And since I can be totally at ease on my own (and I’m not alone in that), the concept “totally at ease” is *not* a translation for “gezellig”.
Come on, shoot again, I dare you
ps: I *have* been on a deserted beach with a lovely companion … “gezellig” doesn’t even begin to describe the mood we were in … .
I surrender…
Gezellig IS difficult translate precisely because – for Dutch people – the word has special feelings, circumstances and connotations attached to it and ingrained within it. The word describes an atmosphere – i.e. how people feel in certain situations … anything from hanging with good friends to having a nice “bakkie koffee”.
It’s very much like trying to precisely define a nation’s ‘sense of humour’ … you know and feel the difference in your gut … but it’s almost impossible to describe why one is better, funnier or different.
Love you blog!
You have to listen to this song, probably over 30 years old, but still very gezellig
hahaha
Gezellig, I am watching tv right now and I have a cup of tea and I find that gezellig.
Tomorrow I have a diner with a big group and I cannot wait because I reckon it will be gezellig.
I am a cyclist and doing a traing together is way more gezellig even when you don’t talk.
Gezellig is usually translated into cosy which means “knus” NOT “gezellig”. Indeed it is hard to translate, the only American phrase that comes close, I think, is “having a good time”.
I agree that there isn’t one word that captures its range, however some of its usages that haven’t been mentioned above are ‘welcoming’ v ‘unwelcoming’ and ‘heart-warming’ (closely related to the ‘warm and fuzzy’).
btw, Companionshipmentness isn’t necessary, but is nice
‘Companionable’ 
Convivial/conviviality is a strange Latin import…… there’ll be an English word for it that has long died out, therefore my vote goes to the universal adopting of ‘gezellig’ in every tongue!
funny that the most well known untranslated dutch word is ‘apartheid’….
Actually, the most well known untranslated dutch word is ‘fuck’. Steak, snack, fiche, and mannequin also have a wider use than apartheid. They may be mispronounced, but they are untranslated Dutch words.
Fuck, steak, snack, fiche and mannequin are untranslated Dutch words?
“Mannequin” may come from the Dutch word “manneke” but the other words are certainly not Dutch! !
Maybe nice to know that
“fuck” is an English word that is considered vulgar. In its most literal meaning, it refers to the act of sexual intercourse
“steak” comes from Old Norse “steik” = “roast”
“fiche” or “fish” comes from the Old English “fisc” (plural: fiscas)
“snack” comes via the English language from the Old Duth language word ‘snacken’ (eating eagerly)
You must be young thinking Fuck is a Dutch word. When I still lived in Holland it was never used. The first time I heard it was in the US. Now everyone in Holland uses it, and many have no clue what is us or where it came from. Fuck is the English equivalent of neuk.
“Fuck” comes from the dutch verb fokken. It wasn’t a swear word when it first crossed the English channel many centuries ago. It doesn’t take much imagination to see how a word meaning “to breed” would evolve into a slang word for copulation or fornication.
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What about the word ”lekker”? Your food can be lekker (taste good), it can be lekker warm (nice and warm), you can say lekker ding (cute (tasty) guy), or lekker dan! (Oh great, sarcastic). This too is a word you can not translate, not in a way that it can be used in all these separate situations.
Love the site bij the way, studying in the uk now and reading all thing makes me miss home a bit. Hope you add some more soon, there is so much more to write about.
After trying to explain to my UK girlfriend the meaning of gezellig as ‘anything that makes you feel good’, she has now put it in her head that sex can be gezellig! I would say as a dutchman that the use of the word gezellig is a very good way to kill erotic thoughts.
Well… in my view your English girlfriend has a point there! Sex has to be “gezellig” some way or another
Gezelligheid kent geen tijd
“gezellig” is just tacky to use. same as “leuk”. one should definitely use a word that describes the atmosphere/situation more precisely. However, sometimes “gezellig” is the shortest most precise description.
Gezellig:
Cosy & Fun combined, It’s a state of Mind!
Gezellig doesn’t translate into a single word in English. The best example is a conversation that has gotten so interesting that the time flies by. Everyone is enjoying him/herself. Then the evening is “gezellig.”
Gezellig(e) = Adjective …
Gezelligheid = Noun …
… for “Having a good time”
“Gezellig” means everything stated above, and much more. But ultimately, it’s a way of saying much with little words.
Imagine two older ladies, shopping their asses off for half a day, resting at La Place. Coffee has been purchased and brought to a table. Bags are put out of the way, coats hung over chairs.
The moment they sit down, they both will sigh and say: “Heh heh, gezellig. Effe zitten.”
Of course they don’t mean to say that having a coffee at La Place is ‘een gezellige bezigheid’, a gezellig activity, but the whole idea of shopping with a friend, burning money your husband worked for, drinking coffee while gossiping about people around you – that’s gezellig. Doing what you like doing.
And if somebody (or some event) messes up your plans towards ‘gezelligheid’, then that’s ‘ongezellig’. A reason to ‘be very direct’ or a reason to leave, go do something else.
‘
I like this site. There are tons of ideas waiting to be exploited!
Gezelligheid to me is a warm feeling about something simple and often social. I think the word has a strong conventional connotation, but almost never in a bad way (which makes it all the more unique). Having a simple cup of tea on the couch with the cat on your lap can be gezellig (=simple pleasure of enjoying little things / the snugly ambiance), but having something more fancy like dinner in an expensive restaurant can only be gezellig when you allude to the company of others which you enjoyed during that dinner (=eating out is not particularly regarded a simple pleasure, however the good company is). Truly gezellige company usually is a bit chitchatty about random things and never too serious. When a topic is hard to chatter about, it’s often not particularly gezellig. Also, the word cannot be applied to situations or stuff which can be considered exiting or cool. Therefore, Ferraris or sex hardly ever get gezellig, and when they do, it’s quite off-putting.
I’m South African and in Afrikaans (the Dutch language’s little sister- often called Kitchen Dutch or Zuid-Afrikaans) it translates to… wait for it… GESELLIG!
We pronounce it pretty much the same and there’s pretty much no English translation for it, as it means the same as the Dutch version. We also refer to a “get-together” of some sorts as a geselligheid.
Love your blog!
ja
I have to say that I NEVER use the word gezellig. To be honest, I hate the word! It has a certain “it has to be” in it. If someone says to me I already pass. Because we can drink a cup of tea, but we have to find out during that time wheter it is gezellig or not. When someone says gezellig, it must be gezellig! So I always go for the word leuk (nice). Then this stigma of only stop by with a smile, do not talk about anything that isn’t great/perfect/nice (even though you are in a bad mood), is gone. My friends know that I realy hate this word and try not to use it. They also know that when I say that I had a great time I mean it.
In other words: you can use gezellig for everything even though it was not gezellig. I even heard this word at a funeral, when can a funeral be gezellig?
I mostly only use this word ‘gezellig’when I’m in company of other people that I like. Being alone or with boring people, people you do not like etc. is ‘ongezellig’. For me personally there needs to be at least 1 person around me that I like in order to have it ‘gezellig’.
Another good example is people going to places that are usually gezellig.. one that I really find gezellig is a christmas market with lot’s of people and nice stuff everywhere, the christmas period is a time of gezelligheid and lots of christmas occasions like christmas dinner and stuff are gezellig. I think giving examples of something that is gezellig can give you the idea what it is, but in order to know what it really is, you need to do stuff with someone Dutch and he/she will tell you afterwards if it was gezellig or not, you will get the hang of this soon or later and there is something Dutch inside you that only Dutch people will understand
Very nice that you brought this fact up, I didn’t realise it’s something very Dutch until now
I am dutch and live in Danmark. Danish has similar words, which you cannot translate directly. Gezelligheid=hygge, gezellig=hyggelig. These words are used exactly like the dutch ones, it`s quite nice for a dutchwoman
Gezel, in Dutch, means companion. Metgezel is someone who accompanies you. But gezel is also a rank in craftsmanship, equivalent with English journeyman, but with less emphasis on the traveling around and more on working with a master while already a full fledged craftsman.
Company is more or less essential for gezelligheid, but it is most of all a sense of being in your proper place, a feeling of being where you should be, at that time and with those people (whether a single person or a crowd). The situation can be lively, but it`s a calm feeling, a feeling of connectedness. It`s a meditative state of emotional consciousness.
Having grown up with Dutch roots (my grandparents are Dutch immigrants to the US,) I’m certainly familiar with this one. In my parents’ house, there are certain overhead lights you just plain don’t turn on unless you really need them, simply because they’re ongezellig.
“Gezelligheid” – noun – A familial and friendly atmosphere within a group in a certain setting; “Gezellig” – adj. – Possessing the quality of “gezelligheid”; “Ongezellig” – The opposite of “gezellig”, i.e. unwelcoming, alienating, or even hostile.
Haha, wat een gezelligheid hier.
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If you think “gezellig” is hard to translate, then try “rete gezellig”;-)
This website is heaven for me.
- that same word ‘gezellig’ does not even come close to the Dutch (lack of) definition and emotional connotation. You do the math.
I’m a Belgian living in the Netherlands since 1983 and I still am confronted with my non-Dutchness on a daily basis.
Now, this case is simple. You are right: there is no adequate translation for ‘gezellig’ in English. But here’s the thing: there is NO language in the world, NO people in the world that has a word for ‘gezellig’. Even in Flemish -the correct way of speaking Dutch …
Frank
I try to explain as a moment of sharing, and the sharing could be whatever, as long as it is together, most of the times at somebody’s house, or a group of friends joining for an acitivity like bowling. , have a laugh, some times a cry. I think the more was shared, the gezelliger it was. Could also be bringing up old story’s.
We like the word ‘gezellig’ almost as much as the Americans like the word ‘like’.
Only Americans that consider the “like” word useful are lazy… most of us never use it and can’t stand it! Uneducated youngsters use it to fill in a blank space in their sentences.
Gezellig, when you define a situation where you are with others, describes a mental state; you enjoy being able to relax and be yourself while being in eachothers compagny.
When it defines a location it says that this particular location ouzes a kind of warmth and is inviting.
compagny = company
gezellig = cozy in english
I’m afraid that to me, “gezellig” sounds like “nice.”
maitlandm says: ‘I’m afraid that to me, “gezellig” sounds like “nice.”’
That’s because you’re not Dutch. Don’t take it too hard.
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