[cr1895]

"want" vs. "like", isn't it still just willen in het Nederlands?

I seem to recall hearing "wat kan ik voor u doen?" or "wat willen jullie drinken?" for example. I'm still learning Dutch, but neither of those carries more or less directness or softness to me.

[Ambroos]

I was going for "Wat mag het zijn?" which is something I hear a lot when going out, but is hard to translate. I thought the distinction between want and like in English conveys a similar idea.

[Fnoord]

Oh, if its from the south, they got a little bit more customs & manners over there IMO. Try Maastricht, for example.

Literally, it'd be "what may it be" but I don't think a good translation is possible. It'd end up with something like "what is your preference?" but I could come up with a Dutch, formal version of that: "wat mag het u believen?" where "believen" is an equivalent to "wünschen". A German could say, in short, "Sie wünschen?" and with the correct tone and body language it wouldn't be rude. You could say the same about Dutch; tone and body language are very important in communication (I have autism and am in an autism support group where this was recently addressed wink.)

Or perhaps rather "what would you like to order", but shorter. A German translation would end up with "Was möchten Sie haben?" though the Dutch one you mentioned cleverly avoids "du vs Sie" aka (in Dutch) tutoyeren [1]. I find it weak; get over yourself and treat the customer as such. Heck, how about having pride in treating your customer well? Something thoroughly lacking in The Netherlands. And I get it; sometimes you're tired while working such job or it is late or a bad day but this isn't that; it is systematic, and rather rampant in "Randstad" (big cities in Holland).

The Germans use "bitte" a lot more, and are always formal in situations where the Dutch have swapped to "jij/je". Especially Vodafone Netherlands (who got their helpdesk ironically in Maastricht) is so obviously using "jij/je" on their support pages. Cringeworthy! Hello?! I am your customer not your acquaintance!! Also compare for example casual restaurants in Germany and The Netherlands.

It isn't that these rules of using "u" don't exist in Dutch; they do. Its just -slowly but surely- being used less and less with a turning point around the (wild) '70s.

[1] https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tutoyeren

[cr1895]

>"Wat mag het zijn?" which is something I hear a lot when going out

I don't recall ever hearing this in the NL. Maybe it's a Flemish thing.

[wila]

It is a common question in the southern parts of the Netherlands.