Eerste Nederlandse zinnen voor toeristen en beginners

What does “tot ziens” mean in Dutch?

Dutch goodbyes are built on tot (until). Tot ziens means goodbye — word for word, “until seeing” — and the same little word builds every other farewell: tot morgen (see you tomorrow, “until tomorrow”), tot later (see you later), tot volgende week (until next week). Learn tot once and you can build any Dutch farewell just by adding when you’ll next meet.

Both forms appear in this tourist-phrases clip: “Tot morgen” as a mid-way farewell and “Tot ziens” as the final goodbye. The word ziens is the old noun/genitive form of zien (to see) — “the seeing” — making the full phrase “until the seeing.” The same logic shows up in French au revoir (“to the re-seeing”) and German auf Wiedersehen (“until the re-seeing”). Dutch tot stretches beyond farewells: tot hier (up to here), tot nu toe (up to now, so far), tot stand komen (to come about, to be achieved). For a looser goodbye, Dutch has doei (just “bye,” very casual) and dag (literally “day,” a friendly “cheerio”). But for most situations, one of the tot combinations is the most natural choice.