Skirt wearing in The Netherlands

General discussion of skirt and kilt-based fashion for men, and stuff that goes with skirts and kilts.
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DonaldG
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Skirt wearing in The Netherlands

Post by DonaldG »

I will soon be going on holiday to The Netherlands, and wondered if anyone could offer any tips, advice or comments relating to men wearing skirts in that particular country.
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Re: Skirt wearing in The Netherlands

Post by Disaffected.citizen »

I encountered no problems, whatsoever, on several holidays; but haven't been there since 2012. There might have been some double-takes, but nothing I noticed.
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Re: Skirt wearing in The Netherlands

Post by skirtyscot »

Same here, no bother at all. Last visited in March this year. Mind you, that was our third exchange visit with a Dutch choir, so they were all used to seeing me in a skirt, bar a few new members since our last visit. The usual places ... airport, trains, churches, around and about here and there. We did a concert with a youth orchestra, and there were a few double takes in rehearsals, but nobody said anything, not even in Dutch (at least not in my earshot).

On the subject of the Netherlands, we haven't heard from janrok for a long time. Anybody know if he is OK?
Keep on skirting,

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Re: Skirt wearing in The Netherlands

Post by Bowtie »

I would say that the Dutch tend to be fairly liberal with their attitudes so you may well find them more accepting than other cultures (just my view...)! It would be interesting to hear about your experiences there and whether the culture is, in fact, more accepting of male skirt wearing. Enjoy.
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Re: Skirt wearing in The Netherlands

Post by beachlion »

Born in the Netherlands but not wearing skirts when there, I would say that it depends on where you go. In the larger cities not much of a problem unless there are teeners or drunks around. In rural areas they may look at you longer than normal and may make a comment. The Dutch in general are quite direct but also quite reserved.
But you can wear your skirts. The more extravagant you go, the more likely you will get some remarks. If it gets annoying just say:"Bemoei je met je eigen zaken" and that means "Mind your own business." That is short and a little rude but it will take care of things. :wink:
Last edited by beachlion on Thu Sep 28, 2017 7:25 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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skirtyscot
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Re: Skirt wearing in The Netherlands

Post by skirtyscot »

It will if you can pronounce it!
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Re: Skirt wearing in The Netherlands

Post by crfriend »

skirtyscot wrote:It will if you can pronounce it!
Dutch is surprisingly close to English but at the same time far enough off to be frustrating. One key is the rhythm of the language; even if you don't initially get the gist of it, the sound is familiar. Also, enough of the vocabulary is "close enough" that a monoglot English-speaker can sometimes pick pieces out of it. I've heard it said that an English-speaker immersed in the language will actually learn it pretty quickly -- and get passably fluent -- out of necessity, possibly within weeks. Odder still, and I have no verification of this, I've heard that if one is willing to travel at 18th Century speeds along rivers and whatnot to Germany one will find himself speaking German at the end of his journey without really thinking much about it. I'm not sure of the veracity of that claim, but all the languages involved are very closely related linguistically. (Which may be the genesis of the, "Yell it at him and he should understand." remark.)
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Re: Skirt wearing in The Netherlands

Post by beachlion »

Dutch is quite difficult to learn properly because there are so many deviations of the basic rules. Dutch is quite unique in its sound of vowels. In most languages, a vowel consist of a single letter or two identical letters like "e" and "ee." In Dutch there are more besides a aa,e, ee,i,o,oo, u and uu. We have also "au", "ei", "eu" "oe", "ou" and "ui" to name a few. We have also the strange combination of "ij" as a single letter. You can (could) find on typewriters specially made for the Dutch and Flemish part of Belgium.

http://www.dutchgrammar.com/en/?n=Spell ... ciation.12

I think we deserve our spot in the list of 25 most difficult languages to learn.

The complaint I have heard from most English speaking persons in the Netherlands is that they don't learn much of the lingo because the Dutch have in general some command of English at various levels.
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Re: Skirt wearing in The Netherlands

Post by Kirbstone »

Embarassingly so. Some years ago we chose to visit the town of Eindhoven (NL) seeking out the parents of an exchange student we'd had. We stopped a couple walking on the pavement and asked them in English where such-and-such a Crescent was, whereupon they replied in faultless English exactly where we should find it. We might as well have been in Walton-upon-Thames! The Danes, Swedes, Norwegians & Finns do the same.

In tourist areas the Germans generally do the same. In my 40s I went to work there in a strictly non-tourist place, where out of 40.000 people just a handful could speak English, so it was a total immersion experience. I return as often possible to keep it up, otherwise it gets awfully rusty from disuse.

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Re: Skirt wearing in The Netherlands

Post by geron »

I heard on a radio talk once that there are rural areas in northwestern Germany where the speech you'll hear in pubs is so close to antique English that you'd think it WAS English, if you weren't listening closely. The Frisian dialect, I think it was. But of course there are many other ingredients in modern English.
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Re: Skirt wearing in The Netherlands

Post by Kirbstone »

That region in coastal NW Germany is called Ost-Friesland and the vernacular language widely spoken there is platt-Deutsch. Radio announcers speak Hoch-Deutsch. no translation necessary.
In the coastal village of Blexen my landlady, who came from East Friesland spoke mostly platt and was very difficult to understand indeed. Lots of words are sort-of English, but the pronunciation kills all similarity. Funny songs, Sea-shanties and humorous recitations are in platt and raise gales of laughter, but the jokes passed mostly right over my head, alas.

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Re: Skirt wearing in The Netherlands

Post by beachlion »

You can put your question on a Dutch forum about men in skirts like: http://www.rokvoormannen.nl/forum/index.php

They are reasonable in English.
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Re: Skirt wearing in The Netherlands

Post by Gusto10 »

There is a difference between Amsterdam and the rest of the country. One will be polite. But in general they are very conservative using the frase just act normal and you will be doing strange enough.
Dutch fishermen would go to Edinburgh as the was little difference in language.
Frisian and English have the same Saxon source, thus with a good grasp of English it's easy to understand Frisian.
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DonaldG
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Re: Skirt wearing in The Netherlands

Post by DonaldG »

I'm here in the Netherlands, wore a denim skirt once in Amsterdam and a woman asked to take my photo to show her grandson that it was OK for men to wear skirts.

Now in Leeuwarden, and some attention from wearing a skirt, but mostly people don't notice or care.
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Re: Skirt wearing in The Netherlands

Post by Caultron »

DonaldG wrote:I'm here in the Netherlands, wore a denim skirt once in Amsterdam and a woman asked to take my photo to show her grandson that it was OK for men to wear skirts...
Interesting.

That's great that she's telling her grandson that's OK to wear skirts, but I wonder she'd do that?

He wants to wear skirts but he's afraid?

She wants him to wear skirts but he doesn't want to?

She just wants to expand his world view?

Something else?

Did you happen to ask?
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