Formal written Dutch: nominal style, ter and ten, and formal connectors

You can chat comfortably in Dutch, but then a letter from the gemeente, a policy memo or a report at work lands in front of you and it reads like another language: Na ontvangst van uw aanvraag zal deze ten behoeve van een zorgvuldige beoordeling in behandeling worden genomen. Nothing in that sentence is rare vocabulary. It's the style that makes it hard.

This guide takes apart the four things that make written Dutch formal: the choice of words, the nominal style, the old fixed phrases with ter and ten, and the impersonal tone. Once you can recognise them, you can read official Dutch with ease and, just as importantly, choose how formal you want your own writing to be.

Formal vocabulary: same meaning, different register

The first layer is simple word choice. Formal Dutch has a set of words that mean exactly the same as everyday ones, but belong to writing. You met some of them at B1 in Formal vs informal Dutch.

The grammar doesn't change. Indien and aangezien send the verb to the end like als and omdat; derhalve and tevens cause inversion like dus and ook do at the start of a sentence:

• Indien u vragen heeft, kunt u contact met ons opnemen. — Should you have any questions, please contact us.
• Uw aanvraag is onvolledig. Derhalve kunnen wij deze niet in behandeling nemen. — Your application is incomplete. We are therefore unable to process it.

Dienen te replaces moeten in rules and instructions. It always takes te: U dient zich te legitimeren. — You are required to show identification.

Nominal style: turning verbs into nouns

The second layer, and the most important one, is nominalisation: expressing an action with a noun instead of a verb. Spoken Dutch says nadat we je betaling hebben ontvangen; written Dutch says na ontvangst van uw betaling. A whole subclause shrinks into a short prepositional phrase.

A few things to notice:

• The noun often has no article: bij vertrek, na ontvangst, wegens ziekte. This is typical of fixed formal phrases. See Dutch without an article for more.
• Many of these nouns come from verbs in regular ways: ontvangen → de ontvangst, betalen → de betaling, ondertekenen → de ondertekening, vertrekken → het vertrek. Our guide to word formation covers the suffixes.
• The person who does the action disappears. Na ontvangst van uw betaling doesn't say who receives it. That is exactly why official texts love this style: it sounds objective.

Ter and ten: frozen phrases from the old case system

Formal Dutch is full of phrases with ter and ten. They're contractions of te + an old article: ter comes from te der (feminine), ten from te den (masculine or neuter). Modern Dutch has no cases, so you can't work out which one to use from the noun. You learn each phrase as a whole. Our post on old case forms tells the full story.

In use:

• De gemeente neemt maatregelen ter bevordering van de verkeersveiligheid. — The municipality is taking measures to promote road safety.
• Er is extra geld beschikbaar ten behoeve van de renovatie. — Extra money is available for the renovation.
• Ten opzichte van vorig jaar is het aantal klachten gedaald. — Compared with last year, the number of complaints has fallen.

Tip: Teneinde (in order to) is written as one word and works like om … te: teneinde de kwaliteit te waarborgen — in order to guarantee quality. Written as two words, ten einde means "at an end".

Formal prepositions and connectors

Formal Dutch also replaces short prepositions with longer ones. They add little meaning but signal "this is an official text".

• Met betrekking tot uw vraag kunnen wij het volgende melden. — With regard to your question, we can tell you the following.
• Op grond van artikel 4 wordt uw aanvraag afgewezen. — On the grounds of Article 4, your application is rejected.
• In het kader van het onderzoek zijn twintig mensen geïnterviewd. — As part of the study, twenty people were interviewed.

Middels is correct but many style guides find it stiff; via or met usually works better. For connectors that link whole sentences, such as desalniettemin, dientengevolge and ofschoon, see our guide to advanced connectors.

An impersonal tone: no je

The fourth layer is the absence of je. In formal writing you either address the reader as u (see formal and informal you) or you avoid addressing anyone at all. There are four standard ways to do that.

1. The passive, very often with dienen te or worden:

• Het formulier dient te worden ondertekend. — The form must be signed.
• Er wordt verzocht niet te roken. — You are requested not to smoke.

See the passive voice for how worden and zijn work.

2. Men, the impersonal pronoun "one". It always takes a singular verb:

• Men gaat ervan uit dat de kosten zullen stijgen. — It is assumed that costs will rise.

3. The organisation as subject:

• De gemeente is voornemens het plein opnieuw in te richten. — The municipality intends to redesign the square.

4. The text itself as subject:

• Deze notitie beschrijft de gevolgen van het nieuwe beleid. — This memo describes the consequences of the new policy.

In everyday Dutch, generic je means "people in general": Je moet hier betalen. In a report, that becomes Men dient hier te betalen or, more naturally, Hier dient te worden betaald.

Tip: Many Dutch companies, and even some government websites, deliberately write in a friendly je style. That's a choice, not a mistake. What is a mistake is switching between je and u in the same text.

Don't overdo it

Formal style has a bad reputation in the Netherlands. Texts stuffed with nominalisations are called ambtelijk (bureaucratic) or stroperig (treacly), and government bodies actively encourage helder taalgebruik, plain language that a wide audience can understand. Compare:

• Stiff: Ter voorkoming van vertraging bij de afhandeling van uw verzoek wordt u verzocht zorg te dragen voor tijdige indiening van de benodigde stukken.
• Clear: Stuur de benodigde stukken op tijd in. Dan kunnen wij uw verzoek snel afhandelen. — Send in the required documents on time. Then we can deal with your request quickly.

The stiff version is grammatically fine, but it's hard to read. Good formal Dutch uses nominal phrases where they save words (na ontvangst van, bij vertrek) and keeps active verbs everywhere else. Aim for formal, not fossilised.

Quick summary

• Formal Dutch swaps everyday words for formal ones: indien, aangezien, derhalve, reeds, thans, dienen te. The grammar stays the same.
• Nominal style turns subclauses into short noun phrases: na ontvangst van, bij vertrek, ter verbetering van.
• Ter and ten are frozen old case forms; learn each phrase as a unit.
• Multi-word prepositions like met betrekking tot, ten aanzien van and in het kader van signal an official text.
• In formal texts, use u, the passive, men, or the organisation or text as subject instead of je.
• Don't overdo it: too many nominalisations make a text ambtelijk.

Practise it

Learn the key phrases in Formal written Dutch, review the B1 basics in Formal vs informal Dutch, and put them to work in Formal emails.