05:59 Mar 30, 2010 

Imo "Giften" and "legaten"are simply English words that the Dutch swallow... like thousand others.

20:29 Mar 28, 2010 

The difference in meaning of these terms is often found in the small print of tax law. E.g. see: https://www.schenkservice.nl/default.asp?P=1_Burgerlijk_wetb... .
Executive summary: Iedere schenking is een gift maar niet iedere gift is een schenking.

20:17 Mar 28, 2010 

Don't lose any sleep over it. In Dutch people often use two words where one would do, but in this case I think David is right: there is a difference. As far as I can see, schenkingen en donaties are the same thing - when I grew up in Holland, the word 'donaties' did not exist. It seems to be one of the many words taken over from English since then.

20:05 Mar 28, 2010 

Right. But in Dutch it doesn't say donation. It says schenking... So if donation is the right translation of schenking, "donatie" and "schenking" would have to be synonyms in Dutch. Are they? :)

19:56 Mar 28, 2010 

A gift is normally one-off whereas a donation can be ongoing as in "monthly donations" or "I donate regularly". In addition, gifts do not have to be money. The Dierenambulance for which I used to work received the gift of a new ambulance.

19:35 Mar 28, 2010 

Gifts, legacies and donations is what I have now. But I'm starting to feel like I'm answering a trick question. If there's no difference between "giften" and "schenkingen", or between "gifts" and "donations", then what's the point of distinguishing between the two? And if there is a difference between "donations" and "gifts", then why does the Dutch use "schenkingen" and not "donaties"?