[furyg3]

To some degree you're right, but as an American who is (now) fluent in Dutch, it is not all up to translations.

The Dutch will tell each other if they don't like someone's shoes, if they should have prepared better for a meeting, if you wouldn't mind keeping it down, etc.

[donkeyd]

What's funny though, is that this often isn't true in the workplace. I worked at Apple for a while, an American company in the Netherlands and their way of giving direct feedback was tough for a lot of people.