How to experience more love in Dutch

Probably you already know this sentence: ik hou van jou…. Yes… it means I love you…  Technically, it is not that difficult to say, right? But… for some strange reason, you hardly ever hear it…

It seems that for Dutch people ik hou van jou is a very serious declaration. They will not say it often… Usually they will say it to you when they like to be in a permanent love relationship with you. But… once you are married, you  may not hear it anymore…  All right then… there is one other situation that really compells Dutch people to say: ik hou van jou…   When they are dying… but then, quite often it is too late 🙁

Therefore, it is easy to see Dutch people as koude kikkers (cold frogs). Why is it so difficult for them to express the most important emotion of the universe? But… there is hope… you may receive much more love than you ever imagined in Holland…

Here is a little secret… If you like to receive love, then do not wait for the sentence ik hou van jou… because then you may have to wait until 2049…. but… there is another word that really expresses love…. It is a small tiny little word, and therefore it is easy to ignore it…

The magic word is lief… Most people would translate it with sweet, cute or lovable… But… if you stick to these translations, you would miss something very important.

The word lief comes from the word liefde (love). It is like warm and warmte (warmth). So here is the amazing thing… if you say that something is warm, then you experience warmth, right? Well.. guess what… if you say that something is lief, then you always experience liefde!

So now that you know this principle, everything changes… just check it for yourself… you could say: de kat is lief and this automatically means that you feel love for the cat…   jij bent lief automatically suggests that you cause a feeling of love. Sometimes if you do something nice for a cloggie they will say: dat is lief and then they also feel the love…. can you see how powerful Dutch love is?

Love is all around in Dutch, once you know how to see, hear and feel it!

From now on, every time that you hear the word lief, then pay attention… it might be a declaration of love, even if it is on a small scale and some little duration… The good thing is that you may hear it quite often…

Last but not least another important word that you should not miss…. liefs is something that you could translate with love and kisses… it means things coming from love… you’ll find it at the end of an email or a text message sometimes…

Can you see? Love is everywhere in Dutch, once you can see it… you just need to do one thing… open your heart and spread the love!