What expats hate about living in Amsterdam, The Netherlands #1

I asked people about the negative aspects of living in Amsterdam.
Part 2 is coming soon. As well as many more topics about life in Amsterdam.

The next series of interviews will be in Berlin.

Our guide to improve your mental health (made by a team of psychologists):

[ageoflove]

"Nobody actually tells you how much you need the language" While I completely understand that Dutch is not the easiest language to master, this does sound a bit silly. Like you needed to be told that you are moving to a non-English native country? Yes, English is widely spoken, of course, and many jobs do not require it, but still, its kinda obvious....? And the way she phrases it like " nobody told me" like its not her own responsability to research a place you are moving to? C'mon...

[pluut]

I went to Italy... Everything was in Italian and no one spoke Dutch so rude 😂.

[pascalstraetmans]

Learning the language comes with so many benefits. Whenever I realise someone wants to learn german, and even if its not perfect I really appreciate it. Especially when it is unexpected

[Hrn]

If you are looking for large, wide beaches : The beaches in the north of North Holland are very wide and quiet, parking is even easy in the main season. I am talking about, for example, Callantsoog and Grootte Keeten, Castricum aan zee etc. There are also several beach pavilions where you can chill out.

[tuinbuddy]

There is a lot of beach, but a lot of people go to the same places and donnot walk a short distance when they arrive there. I live in a coast village and even a lot of Dutch donnot know it is a coast village. We will keep it that way ;-)

[jeroenvanzwam]

What I dislike about Amsterdam is that ppl talk about Amsterdam as if it is a synonym for the Netherlands while Amsterdam only a part and nothing like the rest of the Netherlands.

[MDiry]

Everybody says you don't need to learn Dutch and I have had many Dutch people say "Why bother learning Dutch... it's so useless everybody speaks English!"... And then I try and try to learn it and everybody replies in English and or doesn't understand my efforts.

[mradventurer]

Interesting. There are many quiet beaches so if he 0:55 doesn't like crowded beaches he should go to a quiet beach. I don't know why he doesn't put in the effort to go there.

[macmartin]

Oh no, you're moving to another country and they tell you, you need the language?! Shocking....

[randar]

AS native born in Amsterdammer i like expats for filling up work places we had open for immigrants with high education, what i dislike is that my government lured them with giving them a 20% less tax on income. That create even more problems in the housing market. They can basically pay more rent, then their native dutch co workers doing the exact same work. And don't get me started about the poor. Those people rely on social housing and less and less of those is offered. The waiting list for social housing has now exceeded 20 years in Amsterdam! Never thought i would be so lucky being handicapped. So i could skip the waiting list for small apartments at ground level. You gonna need the native language for situations like reading signs and if you speak to the elderly who didn't had an english education.. Everyone born after 1970 speaks it unless mentally challenged. Sorry for spelling errors my excuse brain damage and being born in 1969 my english lessons didn't start till i was 13 and was only 1 hour/week i learned much more just from the internet and watching subtitled english shows on television/internet. The young are much better in it getting it from kindergartnen (age 4!) nowadays and more hours.

[axllii]

I've traveled to many shitty places! The complaints these people make are very very minor in the larger picture. E.g. theres no shit in the streets, nobody are preparing to rob and kill you, etc. The worst thing is probably the extremely organised society, which is different to what people are used to (not bad, just different!). In my experience Netherland is GREAT, and I'd loved to visit more often.

[donatelladinica]

The fact that nobody tells you how much you need the language is actually very true for most of the expats. Literally back in my home country, Netherlands has been portrayed as a very expat friendly country with 99% of the population speaking english. It’s a huge advertising happening especially coming from International Universities from Netherlands. Like if we wanted to study abroad, after the Brexit, the only good option was advertised to us as being NL. I’m not joking. The gouverment should stop it. The research done on the google says the same, like I completely understand the fact that it’s not uk, the native language is not english but the problem is bigger than this argument.

[ArjenIjsendijk]

Maybe it will be also a good idea to ask the locals, the people who are born in Amsterdam, what they ' hate' about expats.Perhaps the answers of the question are to confrontating, or even do you know the answers already, before asking.
Afterwards we than will make the balance, and it will be very, very quiet.

[alakai]

the car thing is a problem even some plumbers if you call tthem they will say i need 100 euros just for parking or even just say no i dont want tto do job its tto hard to park there and they have a lot of work so they can say this

[puckgroeneweg]

The beach small…where…not in Zandvoort, there is a small beach at Schevingen at the north side of the pier, but not at the other side…our beaches are large…I know I do living near one of them…

[jacolinechase]

Very Nice People and Informative Content. Thank You!

[AnymMusic]

ma'am with all due respect, but if you are moving to a country, you learn the language. There is no if or but about this, you learn the language. You could be moving to Georgia, South-Africa, Australia even, you learn the language. It's common courtesy

[pedroRodriguesMD]

"I am living in another country. Help, because Other Country has diferent language and should not, because I am princess of the Universe and everything has to adapt to ME!" ... FFS

[rientsdijkstra]

The gist of it: people have search to find something to dislike... and PS. There is an enormous (!) (100 mile long!) beach 25 miles from Amsterdam

[MTkr]

It’s incredible that none of them are making any negative comments about Dutch people or their culture yet people in the comments seem so butthurt. I think the comments actually show that these people don’t have much to complain about life in the Netherlands.