Dutch for Beginners Dutch is quite a difficult language. It's not very widely spoken, but it's certainly a difficult language to learn and to pronounce. Dutch is, of course the native language of The Netherlands, and also of Northern Belgium (Flanders). The Belgians have a very typical accent. you immediately notice whether a person is from Holland or Belgium. Dutch is a language of Germanic origin and besides The Netherlands and Belgium, it's also spoken on the Netherlands Antilles, Suriname and many people in Indonesia also speak it (all former colonies of The Netherlands). And in South-Africa, they speak a language derived from Dutch: Afrikaans. Part one of this course is only intended for absolute beginners.
Part One - The Basics Lesson 1: To Be Welcome to the Dutch course here at UniLang. We want to help you learn foreign languages and we hope this little course can help. Of course we also have a big grammar reference and a list of vocabulary available for you to study. These courses in part one are intended for absolute beginners who need a little assistance with starting to learn some basics, so this is not a complete course. When we've shown you the most important basics we'll let go you and then you can explore our grammar reference all by yourself. Before you continue you must do two things. First of all, make sure you are familiar with all the basic grammar terms. Do you know what a noun is? What a verb is? What an adverb is? You can then secondly take a peek at the Dutch pronunciation page.
Introductions We'll start by teaching you how to introduce yourself in Dutch. Take a look at the following Dutch sentence and it's English translation. All Dutch text will be written in blue and the English translation in green. "Ik ben Robert"
Zij zijn Robert en Paul
They are Robert and Paul
Thats alot of new words, but it's all very easy. Now that you've seen all subject pronouns in Dutch, you know how to refer to people. And besides that, you've also learned your first Dutch verb, an irregular verb: "Zijn", in English "To be". There is also a small new word that appeared in this lesson, the Dutch words "en", which means "and". It's also a good exercise to try to pronounce every Dutch sentence you see on this page, and when you're uncertain of how to pronounce a certain character or group of characters then go to the pronunciation page.
Summary In this lesson you've learned two aspects of Dutch grammar, you've learned the subject pronouns and you've learned the full conjugation of the irregular Dutch verb "zijn".
Vocabulary We'll ask you to study a number of words in each lesson , this time we'll give you a couple of very easy words to study. Learn them in both directions! English-Dutch and Dutch-English.
vader
father
moeder
mother
oma
grandmother
opa
grandfather
Solutions After you've done the exercises you can check whether your answer is correct using the following solutions: Solution
1) 2) 3) 4) 5) 6) 7)
of Exercise A:
He is Robert. It is father. They are Robert and Piet. She is mother. You are grandmother. You are grandfather. We are George and William.
Solution
of Exercise B:
1) Wij zijn James en Jane. 2) Zij zijn vader. 3) Ik ben moeder. 4) Zij is oma. 5) Zij zijn Robert en Paul. 6) Jullie 6) Jullie zijn George en William. 7) Jij 7) Jij bent opa.
Lesson 2: Articles and Gender Articles Apparently you've succesfully finished lesson one, so now we can continue with the second lesson. In this lesson you'll learn how to describe certain objects. First of all, we are going to teach you articles. In the previous lesson you learned how to say "He is father" but that sounds a little bit tarzan-like. Wouldn't it sound better if you could say "He is a father" or "He is the father" ? That's what you'll learn now. Take a look at these Dutch sentences:
Gend er
But how can it be possible that the word "the" has two translations in Dutch? This has to do with the difficult concept of noun gender, a concept not known in English but is in almost every other language. In most other languages a noun has a certain gender. So you're telling me a noun can be a boy or a girl? Indeed...that's what we're saying. A noun has a certain gender in Dutch (and many other Germanic languages). There are three genders: masculine, feminine and neuter. Every noun (note that this gender concept only applies to nouns) has one of these three genders. How to determine what gender is very hard. In Dutch gender is not very imporant because it doesn't effect many grammar rules. But nevertheless some grammar rules are dependent of the gender of the noun, so you'll have to learn the gender of each noun. One grammar rule that is gender-dependent is the formation of the definite articles, in other words, how "the" is translated in Dutch. When the noun to which the article applies is a masculine or feminine noun, then "the" is translated as "de". If the article applies to a neuter noun, then the article that has to be used is "het". That's why we said "het huis" and "de stoel"; "huis" is a neuter word and "stoel" is a masculine or feminine word (most Dutch people can't even tell this. The difference between masculine and feminine isn't very important in Dutch, but for those who want to know, it is a masculine word). Well, this noun gender concept might have confused you a bit. For English speaking people it can be a weird concept. But if English is not your native language, then it's most likely that you are already familiar with noun gender. From now on we will also mention the article of a noun in our vocabulary lists. Note that the indefinite article ("a" and "an") is gender independent and is always translated with "een".
H ebben - to hav e In this lesson we'll also introduce another irregular Dutch verb, the verb "hebben", which means "to have". Take a look at the full conjugation and translation of this verb:
Ik heb
I have
Jij hebt
You have
de vader
the father
de moeder
the mother
de oma
the grandmother
de opa
the grandfather
de stoel
the chair
het huis
the house
de tafel
the table
de kat
the cat
de hond
the dog
het bot
the bone
het dier
the animal
het gebouw
the building
Exercises Exercise
A: Translate to
1) E en kat is een dier. 2) Het huis is een gebouw.
English:
2) 3) 4) 5) 6) 7)
The house is a building. The dog has a bone. I have a cat. The father has a house. The father and the mother have a dog. You have a house.
Solution
1) 2) 3) 4) 5) 6) 7)
of Exercise B:
De oma heeft een kat. E en kat is een dier. De tafel heeft een stoel. De oma en de opa hebben een hond. De moeder heeft een hond en de vader heeft een kat. Wij hebben een tafel. Zij hebben het huis.
Lesson 3: Formal Pronouns, Possessive Adjectives, and Plural Nouns Formality Before we teach you how to tell that something belongs to a certain person we first have to teach you how to be polite in Dutch. In Dutch and most other languages, but not in English, there exists a certain polite form of "you". In Dutch they say "U" instead of "jij" in formal speech. "jij" is only used among friends and for children. Verbs after "U" are also conjugated differently, usually like after 2 person singular ("jij"), but sometimes like after 3 person singular ("hij"). Take a look at the following sample sentences: nd
rd
Jij bent oma.
You are grandmother.
U bent oma.
You are grandmother.
Jij hebt een hond.
You have a dog.
Dat is onze stoel.
That is our chair.
Dit is jullie stoel.
This is your chair.
Dat is hun stoel.
That is their chair.
Deze stoel
This chair
Dit huis
This house
Die stoel
That chair
Dat huis
That house
You've learned a couple of things now. First of all you know that "this" is "dit" and "that" is "dat" in Dutch. But this only applies when those pronouns appear before the verb "zijn". When they are used adjectively (next to the noun) then these words become gender dependent: "this" is "dit" (with neuter nouns) or "deze" (with masculine/feminine nouns) and "that" is "dat" (with neuter nouns) or "die" (with masculine/feminine nouns). You've also seen the possessive adjectives and you probably noticed that possessive adjectives also have a formal form.
Plural nouns Now it's time to learn plural nouns. Until now you've only seen singular nouns such as "house" and "chair", but now we'll teach you how to form a plural noun ("houses", "chairs") in Dutch. There are several rules that apply to forming plural nouns. Take a look at the following examples: "Boek - Boeken Paard - Paarden, Zak - Zakken, Tas - Tassen, Rivier - Rivieren, Oog - Ogen, Aap - Apen, Zaal Zalen, Toon - Tonen"
Die huizen
Those houses
BUT WHEN SEPARATED BY "ZIJN":
Dat zijn boeken.
Those are books.
Dit zijn sleutels.
These are keys.
About the articles: when a noun is plural then the concept of noun gender doesn't matter anymore. "het" is never used with plural nouns. Instead, "de" is used, even when the noun has neuter gender. The indefinite article ("een") is always omitted when dealing with plural nouns, just like in English (We never say "a houses"). That's enough material for this lesson.
het boek
the book
het paard
the horse
de rivier
the river
het oog
the eye
de aap
the monkey
de muis
the mouse
de sleutel
the key
de vinger
the finger
4) Zijn boeken zijn hier. 5) Zij zijn hier. 6) Ik heb veel paarden. 7) Jij hebt onze camera. 8) Zij heeft uw sleutel. 9) Dit zijn jullie foto's. 10) Jij hebt deze boeken. 11) Wij hebben die camera's. Exercise
B: Translate to Dutch:
1) We have many fingers. 2) These are my eyes. 3) That is his key. 4) This is your book and these are your dogs . (spoken to a stranger) 5) I have those photos. 6) Her books are there. 7) They have the house. 8) This house is your house . (spoken to a dear friend) 9) You are their grandmother . (use formal speech) 10) Here is our camera. 11) The houses have many keys.
Solutions Solution
of Exercise A:
1) Those are my photos. 2) A monkey has fingers. 3) These are their keys. 4) His books are here.
Lesson 4: Regular Verbs and Negation You've already worked your way through three chapters. Make sure you understood everything that appeared in those chapters. Make sure you understand the grammar and vocabulary and do make the exercises to practice. Also make sure you try to pronounce every Dutch sentence so you can practice your pronunciation. Regular
v erbs
Let's start now by learning a regular Dutch verb: "zeggen" ("to say" in English). In Dutch a regular verb in the present tense always has the same ending. That ending is underlined in the following example. The part of the verb that's not underlined is called the stem, the part of the verb that always remains the same (although it might occur that the last consonant of the stem is repeated so the vowel before it retains the same sound. This is the case with this verb).
Ik zeg Jij zegt
I say You say also applies to the formal form "u"
Hij/Zij/Het zegt
He/She/It says
Wij zeggen
We say
Jullie zeggen
You say
Zij zeggen
They say
We'll now discuss this conjugation somewhat more. The first person singular ("Ik") is easy. It uses the full stem without any specific ending. The second person singular ("Jij") gets an extra T behind the stem. So does the
Note that the infinitive verb (the unconjugated form, in English preceded by "to" as in "to see") ends on EN in Dutch. Drop the EN and you have the stem of the verb. Then you can go conjugate it. You already know that the stressed vowel in a regular verb always has the same sound. This sound is copied from the infinitive verb. So besides adding an extra consonant there is also the matter of adding an extra vowel. Before you continue reading, make very sure you understand everything about the Dutch pronunciation. Let's take a look at the verb "praten" ("to speak / to talk") for example. The infinitive verb is pronounced as "pra-tun" (with the A pronounced differently than in English, with a long open sound). It has this special long sound because the A appears at the end of a syllable. When you would say "Ik prat" then that special sound would be lost because an "A" in the middle of a syllable has a very different sound. That's why instead of "ik prat" they say "ik praat", to retain the same sound as in the infinitive verb. Remember this! Note that in the 1 person plural ("wij"), it's not needed to use this double vowel (double vowels never occur at the end of a syllable): "Wij praten". The full conjugation of "praten" can be found below: st
Ik praat
I speak
Jij praat
You speak
Hij/Zij/Het praat
He/she/it speaks
Wij praten
We speak
Jullie praten
You speak
Zij praten
They speak
There are actually three types of regular verbs (strong verbs and two types of weak verbs) but this only effects the past tense of the verb. The present tense is equal to all three types, so we won't look into this matter now. N egation
praten
to speak
zeggen
to say
lopen
to walk
rennen
to run
zien
to see
het kind
het child (plural: de kinderen)
de man
the man
de vrouw
the woman
de appel
the apple
nederlands
dutch
engels
english
Exercises Exercise
1) 2) 3) 4)
A: Translate to
English:
Ik zie de foto's. De man rent. Het kind wil jouw boeken. De vrouwen zien de man niet.
3) We speak Dutch. 4) I have no children. 5) She sees this man. 6) This isn't her grandfather. 7) You speak Dutch. 8) They see my house. 9) They know this. 10) I am not Dutch. 11) We do not have those keys.
Solutions Solution
of Exercise A:
1) I see the photos. 2) The man runs. 3) The child wants your books. 4) The women do not see the man. 5) I see no children. 6) He has no horses. 7) The child knows much. 8) We know much. 9) These are not animals. 10) The woman doesn't look. 11) You speak Dutch. 12) They speak E nglish. Solution
of Exercise B:
1) Ik heb G EE N appels. 2) Ik zie de stoel NI E T.
Lesson 5: Adjectives, Adverbs, and Questions After the difficult lesson you've just done we'll make things a little easier. In this lesson we'll teach you how to use adjectives in Dutch.
Adjectiv es An adjective tells something about a noun, it describes a property of a noun. It usually appears next to the noun, although it can also be separated from the noun using the verb "zijn" (in English: "to be"). Note that in such a construction the "independent" adjective is never a direct object!
Het huis is groot.
The house is big.
Het kind is jong.
The child is young.
De vrouw is oud.
The woman is old.
De appels zijn rood.
The apples are red.
This is an easy construction. The Dutch adjective is never conjugated in any way in such a construction. A somewhat more difficult but more common construction is to use the adjective next to the noun. In this case the Dutch adjective conjugates and gets one extra E. Note that you might have to drop one vowel of a double vowel to retain the same sound:
Het grote huis.
The big house.
Het jonge kind.
The young child.
De oude vrouw.
The old woman.
De rode appels.
The red apples.
Ik praat langzaam
I speak slowly
Hij vliegt laag
He flies low
Zij zwemmen diep
They swim deep
Now you also know how to form adverbs. It's really easy.
Asking questions We can continue with asking question in Dutch. To tell things is nice, but once in a while you might need to ask something of someone. We'll teach you. The word order in a Dutch question is almost the same as in English, although in English we use the helper verb "do". In Dutch, there's no such helper verb. Where in English we'd use "do", the Dutch use the real main verb, in the correct conjugation that matches with the subject. Some questions:
Wat is uw huis?
What is your house?
Waar is hij?
Where is he?
Wanneer komt hij?
When does he come?
Wie is die oude man?
Who is that old man?
Wat zie je?
What do you see?
Wat zien we?
What do we see?
Wat ziet hij?
What does he see?
snel
fast
langzaam
slow
old
oud
jong
young
goed
good
slecht
bad
leuk
nice
aardig
kind
nieuw
new
de fiets
the bike
wat?
what?
wie?
who?
van wie?
whose?
welke?
which?
waarom?
why?
Exercise
B: Translate to Dutch:
1) I want a new chair. 2) I see an old woman. 3) The kind man says: "who are you?" 4) She is not old. 5) They fly fast. 6) Our grandmother is an old woman. 7) These children play. 8) The young child sees a high table. 9) What does the bad dog see? 10) When does that kind cat come here?
Solutions Solution
of Exercise A:
1) That is a kind man. 2) Who is that nice child? 3) Why do you fly low? 4) What is that? 5) That big house is their house. 6) He runs fast. 7) My old grandmother is very kind. 8) I want a new bike. 9) These are very nice kind animals. 10) What do you see there? 11) My old grandfather runs very fast. Solution
of Exercise B:
1) Ik wil een nieuwe stoel.
Lesson 6: More pronouns Mor e pronouns In Lesson One we learned about personal pronouns, we can remember the following list:
Ik
I
Jij
You
U
You (formal)
Hij
He
Zij
She
Wij
We
Jullie
You (plural)
Zij
They
Note that all of these pronouns appear in the subject position of the sentence:
Ik zie de man
I see the man
We all know that personal pronouns have a different form when they are in the object position of the sentence. The object is the part of the sentence that is undergoing the action of the verb while the subject is the one initiating the action of the verb. If we would simply move a personal pronoun from subject position to object position, then we would get a wrong sentence, as the following example illustrates:
*I see he
So the example sentence would translate as follows:
I see him
Ik zie hem
So you get the idea: in object positions you have to use the object pronoun because otherwise you will get an ill-formed sentence, just like in English. We can distinguish another grammaticality. Pronouns can appear in, the so-called indirect object. An indirect object is the receiver of the action. Consider the following:
I give the man a present
Ik geef de man een kado
You will note that de man is obviously the receiver in this example, and therefore it is the indirect object. Like there are direct object pronouns, which we've just seen, there are also indirect object pronouns. Fortunately, there happens to be no difference between the two in Dutch, so we see the same table for indirect object pronouns:
Mij
Me
Jou
You
U
You (formal)
Hem
Him
Haar
Her
Ons
Us
Jullie
You (plural)
Hen
Them
I give the man a present
Ik geef de man een kado
I give him a present
Ik geef hem een kado
I give him it
Ik geef het hem
You see that in the last Dutch example, the two pronouns have swapped position, unlike in English. In English this can be done to: "I give it to him", but that introduces an extra preposition "to". And in Dutch the words HAVE TO are swapped, because otherwise the sentence would be incorrect. Colloquial Us e You have to be aware of the fact that the forms we have discussed so far are often replaced with simpler versions where the ij or ou sound is replaced by a neutral e. The following forms are all equivalent:
Official
Alternative
Jij
Je
Zij
Ze
Mij
Me
Jou
Je
Wij
We
You might expect "hij" to change into "*he", but that never happens and it would produce an incorrect sentence. Below are some sentences that are all exactly the same in meaning:
Ik zie jou
Ik zie je
Jij ziet mij
Je ziet me
3) 4) 5) 6) 7) 8) 9)
Wij zien hen goed. Wat wil ze? Waarom lopen ze snel? U ziet haar niet. We geven het hen. Ze zien het niet. Het is goed.
Exercise
1) 2) 3) 4) 5) 6) 7)
B: Translate to Dutch
I see her. Her dog sees me well. You give me a present. They see it. What does she give him? Why don't you see it? They give me her.
Solutions In this lesson, we will list both the official pronoun forms as well as the colloquial ones, In next lessons we will only list one of them. Solutions
1) 2) 3) 4) 5) 6)
to
Exercise
A
I give the nice man a big present. He gives me a new bike. We see them well. What does she want? Why do they walk fast? You don't see her.
The bird can be in the cage. ("in" being a preposition) But it can also be on top of the cage, under the cage, it can fly through the cage. Or fly out of the cage. It can be stuck between two cages or it can take a nap in front of the cage. You see that there are a lot more possibilities! All those bold-faced words are prepositions. Prepositions are quite abstract and therefore different languages have entirely different prepositions. There is not a simple one-to-one relation between pronouns in different languages so they will have to be discussed separately.
Possession Let us start our discussion with possession. In English we use the pronoun "of", in Dutch we use: "van".
Het huis van mijn vader
The house of my father
But like in English, Dutch also has an analogous way of expressing this without a preposition:
Mijn vader's huis
My father's house
Origin
Ik kom uit Nederland
I come from the Netherlands
Ik krijg een kado van mijn vader
I get a present from my father
Here you already see two possible translations for the English prepositions. "uit" is used with countries/cities. But "van" is a more common translation in other situations. It's often hard to know what preposition to use, and differences between languages are huge. Often only experience and practice can help you. Destination
Ik ga naar school
I go to school
Ik ga naar mijn vader
I go to my father
Location
Movement Note that when it comes to movement, Dutch sometimes uses postpositions instead of prepositions, meaning that the word comes after the complement it applies to.
Ik ga het huis in
I go into the house
Ik ga het huis uit
I go out of the house
Ik spring over het huis
I jump over the house
Ik spring op het huis
I jump onto the house
Ik ga door het huis
I go through the house
The Dutch prepositions above are more-or-less used in the same situation as their English counterparts.
Horizontal vs. Vertical Placement
Het schilderij ligt op de tafel
The painting lies on the table
Het schilderij hangt aan de muur
The painting hangs on the wall
You see that for horizontal placement, the Dutch use "op", while for vertical placement they use "aan", whereas English only uses one preposition. Company
Ik ga met jou
I go with you
Ik ga zonder jou
I go without you
Means
Ik ga met de fiets
I go by bike
Ik ben hier voor drie dagen
I am here for three days
Ik kom over drie dagen
I come in three days
Ik schrijf je binnen drie dagen
I write you within three days
When you use a personal pronoun after a preposition, you have to used the forms equal to those you use as a direct object, but in this case you have to use the long forms with ij and ou and can never shorten them to e! Conjunctions We have now shown you the most common prepositions. Try to practice a lot with them because that's the best way to learn them. We will now move on to conjunctions. Conjunctions are the words that glue sentences together. The most obvious one we have already dealt with: "en" meaning "and". But there are far more such words which can glue sentences together in a certain way. Like we did with the prepositions, we will discuss these through examples...
Ik ga en ik wil reizen
I go and I want to travel
Ik ga of ik wil reizen
I go or I want to travel
Ik ga want ik wil reizen
I go because I want to travel
Ik ga, maar ik wil reizen
I go, but I want to travel
These are the so-called coordinating conjunctions. The sentences that are glued together are of equal importance. There is also a second type of conjunction, which is more common: the subordinate conjunction. It also glues sentences together but the sentences are not of equal importance. One sentence is called the subordinate clause and is more or less integrated into the main clause using a subordinate conjunction. In the following example we demonstrate what a subordinate clause is by highlighting that part of the sentence:
I go because I see you
Ik ga omdat ik je zie
Ik ga wanneer ik je zie
I go when I see you
Ik ga zodat ik je zie
I go in order to (so) I see you
Relativ e
pronouns
This now takes us to a similar issue where subordinate clauses are involved. The subordinate clause in this case is related to a part of the main clause or the main clause entirely. Take a look at the following example:
Ik weet dat ik je zie
I know [that] I see you
Ik weet wat ik zie
I know what I see
De stad waar ik ben
The city where I live
De man die je ziet
The man who sees you
De stoel die groot is
The chair which is big
Het huis dat groot is
The house which is big
Note that while "that" in English can often be omitted, it can never in Dutch. The use of "dat" or "die" depends, just like with the demonstrative pronouns we've seen in part one, on the gender and number of the noun it applies to.
Vocabulary
ook
also/too
nog [steeds]
still
al
already
9) Ik zie alleen een man met een hond die door mijn nieuwe huis loopt. 10) Ik heb een stoel voor deze hond. Exercise
1) 2) 3) 4) 5) 6) 7)
B: Translate to Dutch
Do you see that man with his wife? I walk to the city so I can see my new house. My father's house is big although he is a small man. I go to school by bike because my bike is fast. He has a ca t, but he wants to have a dog. They go into the house that is new. She goes when he goes into the house.
Solutions We will use either the official or colloquial form of the pronouns, so multiple answer are possible. Solutions
to
Exercise
A
1) He also come from The Netherlands. 2) Do you see that I see you? 3) I am already in my house. 4) I go to Amsterdam with my father because it is a big city. 5) I see an old man who runs to the house. 6) The chair which I see is not big. 7) I walk in front of the house. 8) I see the building after you. 9) I only see a man with a dog who walks through my new house. 10) I have a chair for this dog. Solutions
to
Exercise
B
Lesson 8: Verb Tenses Our knowledge of Dutch is already improving gradually! It is time we now move on from present tense and discuss other verb tenses as well. We will start with the past tense:
Past tense Dutch past tense of regular verbs comes in three groups: Strong verbs, Weak verbs with T, Weak verbs with D. The strong verbs have an irregular stem in the past tense, but are conjugated regularly, the only issue is remembering the correct stem. Weak verbs are completely regular and come in two flavors: a T-flavor and a Dflavor. The flavor it takes depends on the final consonant of the verb's stem. If the final consonant is one appearing in the mnemonic word 'T KOFSCHIP then it belongs to the T-group, otherwise it belongs to the Dgroup, provided that is isn't a strong or irregular verb. Can you still follow it? Let's start conjugating each of the three groups as an example: Strong
verb conjugation
LOPEN (liep)
TO WALK
Ik liep
I walked
Jij liep
You walked
Hij/zij liep
He/she walked
Wij liepen
We walked
Jullie liepen
You walked
Zij liepen
They walked
Above you see the past tense conjugation of the strong verb "lopen". Since the verb is strong it has an irregular stem in the past tense: "liep". You see that the rest of the conjugation is quite straightforward and there are in
verb uses the T or the D form, provided of course that you can rule out that it is a strong verb. There are no tricks for knowing that, so that will have to be memorized. Now things will get even more confusing: you probably just grabbed the concept of when the double consonants and vowels and when to make them single again; it all has to do with retaining the sound of the vowel. However, when it comes to strong verbs, this principle is set aside partially. When a past verb stem contains a short vowel, then it is no problem if this short vowel gets replaced by a long one for the plural forms. Consider the following example of a strong verb:
SPREKEN (sprak)
TO SPEAK
Ik sprak
I spoke
Jij sprak
You spoke
Hij/zij sprak
He/she spoke
Wij spraken
We spoke
Jullie spraken
You spoke
Zij spraken
They spoke
Notice that because of the Dutch pronunciation rules, the A-vowel in "sprak" sounds different than the A-vowel in "spraken". But also note that although you are used to compensating this by adding a consonant, this is not done when conjugating strong verbs in the past tense. However, the other way round still applies, if the vowel in the stem is a long one, then it has to remain long even after addition of -E N . Below we will quickly show how to conjugate some irregular and strong verbs we have seen in past lessons. The irregular verbs are fully conjugated. For the strong verbs we only mention the stem, since you can do the rest yourself with what you have learned in this lesson.
Zwemmen: zwom Komen: kwam Geven: gaf Perfect Tense Like in English, this is not the only kind of past tense the Dutch language knows. There is also the perfect tense (which in turn comes in two different forms). Your head might be spinning right now, but don't worry about it because perfect tense in Dutch is very similar to perfect tense in English. Let's first refresh your memory by showing what perfect tense is, we will show both forms, present perfect and past perfect and illustrate this with the example verb "to speak".
Present Perfect
Past Perfect
I have spoken
I had spoken
You have spoken
You had spoken
He/she has spoken
He/she had spoken
We have spoken
We had spoken
You have spoken
You had spoken
They have spoken
They had spoken
You see that perfect tense is composed of a form of the verb "to have" + the so-called participle of the verb in question, in this case the participle is: "spoken", which is an irregular verb. For regular verbs, the participle looks just like the past tense, for example: "hoped". In Dutch the participle of strong verbs is again, irregular. Most Dutch participles start with the prefix "ge-".
Zij hebben gehoopt
Zij hebben gedeeld
Zij hebben gelopen
The past perfect tense is almost the same. The only difference is that the auxiliary verb "hebben" is conjugated in the past tense, just like in English ("have" vs "had"). Consider the following table:
HOPEN
DELEN
LOPEN
Ik had gehoopt
Ik had gedeeld
Ik had gelopen
Jij had gehoopt
Jij had gedeeld
Jij had gelopen
Hij/zij had gehoopt
Hij/zij had gedeeld
Hij/zij had gelopen
Wij hadden gehoopt
Wij hadden gedeeld
Wij hadden gelopen
Jullie hadden gehoopt
Jullie hadden gedeeld
Jullie hadden gelopen
Zij hadden gehoopt
Zij hadden gedeeld
Zij hadden gelopen
While direct object and indirect objects in English appear after the HAVE + PARTICIPLE construction, they appear between them in Dutch. The participle is often last in the sentence. We've already shown you the past-tense stem for the strong verbs (which are irregular) which we've seen in these lessons. Now we will show you the participle of these strong verbs:
Zijn: geweest Hebben: gehad Weten: geweten
Future tense Now we've covered some quite difficult material it's time for something easy, and fortunately Dutch future tense is just that. In English future tense is made by "will" plus the infinitive form of the verb in question (meaning the full unconjugated form). In Dutch it is exactly the same. Verbs are made by a form of the verb "zullen" plus the infinitive form of the verb. Strong verbs, weak verbs, D's and T's are all out of of the picture here. Take a look at the table below:
Ik zal zien
I will see
Jij zult/zal zien
You will see
Hij/zij zal zien
He/she will see
Wij zullen zien
We will see
Jullie zullen zien
You will see
Zij zullen zien
They will see
Note that you can say both "Jij zult zien" and Jij zal zien". It means exactly the same.
Conditional tense Strongly related to the future tense it the conditional tense, where instead of "will", the past tense "would" is being used. The same applies to Dutch by using the past tense of the verb "zullen". The following table will show this:
Ik zou zien
I would see
Jij zou zien
You would see
Hij/zij zou zien
He/she would see
Wij zouden zien
We would see
In more cases you will see that the prefix derived from a preposition can take another position not directly attached to the other part of the verb. This is already immediately obvious in the present tense conjugation of such verbs:
Ik stap uit
I exit
Jij stapt uit
You exit
Hij/zij stapt uit
He/she exists
Wij stappen uit
We exit
Jullie stappen uit
You exit
Zij stappen uit
They exit
And also in past tense, this behavior continues:
Ik stapte uit
I exited
Jij stapte uit
You exited
Hij/zij stapte uit
He/she existed
Wij stapten uit
We exited
Jullie stapten uit
You exited
Zij stapten uit
They exited
3) 4) 5) 6) 7)
We will come to your house. I trusted him. I choose/select a bike for my father. They would see the house. He came because he saw me.
Solutions Solutions
1) 2) 3) 4) 5) 6) 7) 8)
Exercise
A
I saw the dog that you saw too. I will walk to the house unless I already am in the house. I hoped you would share it with me. He walked through the house until he came to the dog (until he reached the dog). We have seen the dog. I looked at my father while he walked. I will look at the house. He would come if he come too.
Solutions
1) 2) 3) 4) 5) 6) 7)
to
to
Exercise
B
I sprak met mijn vader terwijl we liepen. Ze had de man gezien voor jij hem zag. We zullen naar jouw huis komen. I vertrouwde hem. Ik zoek een fiets uit voor mijn vader. Zij zouden het huis zien. Hij kwam omdat hij me zag.
Lesson 10: Filling the gaps In this lesson we will discuss some small issues we haven't gotten around yet. You will see things you might
7
zeven
50
vijftig
8
acht
60
zestig
9
negen
70
zeventig
10
tien
80
tachtig
11
elf
90
negentig
12
twaalf
100
honderd
13
dertien
123
honderddrieëntwintig
14
veertien
200
tweehonderd
15
vijftien
1000
duizend
16
zestien
10000
tienduizend
17
zeventien
100000
honderdduizend
18
achttien
1000000
[één] miljoen
19
negentien
Days of the week Unlike in English, the days of the week do not receive a capital first letter.
The months of the year Like the days of the week, the months of the year are never capitalized:
January
januari
February
februari
March
maart
April
april
May
mei
June
juni
July
juli
August
augustus
September
september
October
oktober
November
november
December
december
The preposition used to point at a month is "in", just like in English.
Imperative