In part one of this course you have seen some of the basics of the Dutch language. You have seen the verb "zijn", personal pronouns, articles and gender, formal pronouns, possessive adjectives and plural nouns, regular verbs and negation and adjectives, adverbs and questions. In this second part we will expand our knowledge and go deeper into the material.
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 |
Because "he" appears in object position in this case, we have to change it's form to "him". Likewise "we" changes to "us", etc.. The same principle applies to Dutch. We can construct the following table for Dutch object pronouns:
| Mij | Me |
| Jou | You |
| U | You (formal) |
| Hem | Him |
| Haar | Her |
| Ons | Us |
| Jullie | You (plural) |
| Hen | Them |
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 |
And thus we can replace "de man" with an indirect object pronoun, obtaining the following result:
| I give him a present | Ik geef hem een kado |
We can even construct double pronouns now:
| I give the man a woman | Ik geef de man een vrouw |
| I give him a woman | Ik geef hem een vrouw |
| I give him her | Ik geef hem haar |
Like in English, the indirect object pronoun comes first in this case and is followed by the direct object pronoun.
We have cleverly omitted the neutral pronoun in our discussion, but we will need to bring it into the picture as well because it is often used. The neutral pronoun in Dutch, the equivalent of the English pronoun "it" is "het". This pronoun has the same form in subject, object and indirect object position, just like English. A small exception in word order occurs however when we deal with double pronouns:
| 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.
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 |
| Jij ziet mij | Je ziet mij |
| Jij ziet mij | Jij ziet me |
| Zij zien jou | Ze zien je |
Using the formal ij or ou form has a highlighting result. You stress explicitly the pronoun and make it more obviously present. In daily speech, you will find the colloquial form more often.
| Geven | To give |
| Het kado | The present |
Note that we will mainly use the colloquial pronoun forms from now on.
Exercise A: Translate to English
1) Ik geef de aardige man een groot kado.
2) Hij geeft mij een nieuwe fiets.
3) Wij zien hen goed.
4) Wat wil ze?
5) Waarom lopen ze snel?
6) U ziet haar niet.
7) We geven het hen.
8) Ze zien het niet.
9) Het is goed.
Exercise B: Translate to Dutch
1) I see her.
2) Her dog sees me well.
3) You give me a present.
4) They see it.
5) What does she give him?
6) Why don't you see it?
7) They give me her.
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 to Exercise A
1) I give the nice man a big present.
2) He gives me a new bike.
3) We see them well.
4) What does she want?
5) Why do they walk fast?
6) You don't see her.
7) We give it to them.
8) They don't see it.
9) It is good.
Solutions to Exercise B
1) Ik zie haar.
2) Haar hond ziet mij/me goed.
3) Je eeft mij/me een kado.
4) Zij/Ze zien het.
5) Wat geeft zij/ze hem?
6) Waarom zie jij/je het niet?
7) Ze geven mij/me haar.
Until now we've managed to stay away from prepositions. But now the time has come to discuss this issue, because prepositions are such a vital part of a language and it's hard to build a sentence without them.
Prepositions are those little words that mark places in space or time. The prepositions are best explained when envisioning a birdcage and a bird, and the ways they relate to each other:
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
We will discuss now some simple prepositions specifying a location:
| Ik ben in het huis | I am in the house |
| Ik sta voor het huis | I stand in front of the house |
| Ik sta achter het huis | I stand behind the house |
| Ik sta op het huis | I stand on the house |
| Ik sta naast het huis | I stand on the side of the house |
| Ik sta bij het huis | I stand near the house |
| Ik sta onder het huis | I stand under the house |
| Ik sta boven het huis | I stand above the house |
| Ik sta boven op het huis | I stand on top of the house |
| Ik sta tussen de huizen | I stand between the houses |
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 eet met mijn handen | I eat with my hands |
Creator
| Gemaakt door mij | Made by me |
Being with people
| Ik ben bij mijn ouders | I am with my parents |
| Ik ben bij mijn ouders | I am at my parents' |
Time
| Ik ga na jou | I go after you |
| Ik ga voor jou | I go before you |
| Ik blijf tot vanavond | I stay until tonight |
| Ik ben hier sinds gisteren | I am here since yesterday |
| 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!
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 |
Note that the word order in the Dutch subordinate clause is different from what we are used to! This is the case in all Dutch subordinate clauses. In a normal sentence we would expect to see:
ik zie je
Which is a SUBJECT-VERB-OBJECT order which we also see in English. However, subordinate clauses in Dutch have a different word-order, namely: SUBJECT-OBJECT-VERB, as in the following example:
.........ik je zie
This is obligatory and a crucial fact of many Germanic languages: subordinate clauses have different word order. Now we know about this we can start discussing the subordinate conjunctions.
| Ik ga omdat ik je zie | I go because I see you |
| Ik ga hoewel ik je zie | I go although I see you |
| Ik ga tenzij ik je zie | I go unless I see you |
| Ik ga als ik je zie | I go if I see you |
| Ik ga terwijl ik je zie | I go while I see you |
| 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 |
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.
| ook | also/too |
| nog [steeds] | still |
| al | already |
| alleen [maar], slechts | only, just |
| nu | now |
| de stad | the city |
| de vrouw | the woman, the wife |
Exercise A: Translate to English
1) Hij komt ook uit Nederland.
2) Zie jij dat ik je zie?
3) Ik ben al in mijn huis.
4) Ik ga met mijn vader naar Amsterdam omdat het een grote stad is.
5) Ik zie een oude man die naar het huis rent.
6) De stoel die ik zie is niet groot.
7) Ik loop voor het huis.
8) Ik zie het gebouw na jou.
9) Ik zie alleen een man met een hond die door mijn nieuwe huis loopt.
10) Ik heb een stoel voor deze hond.
Exercise B: Translate to Dutch
1) Do you see that man with his wife?
2) I walk to the city so I can see my new house.
3) My father's house is big although he is a small man.
4) I go to school by bike because my bike is fast.
5) He has a cat, but he wants to have a dog.
6) They go into the house that is new.
7) She goes when he goes into the house.
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
1) Zie je die man met zijn vrouw?
2) Ik loop naar de stad zodat ik mijn nieuwe huis kan zien.
3) Mijn vader's huis is groot, hoewel hij een kleine man is.
4) Ik ga naar school met de fiets omdat mijn fiets snel is.
5) Hij heeft een kat, maar he wil een hond hebben.
6) Zij gaan het huis dat nieuw is in, Zij gaan het huis in dat nieuw is.
7) Zij gaat wanneer hij het huis in gaat.
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:
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 D-flavor. 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 D-group, 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:
| 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 fact only two different forms. It is important that when you learn a strong verb, you memorize it's stem in past tense, just like you do for English verbs like "bite - bit - bit". Now let's take a look at the weak verbs. The two left columns show a T-group weak verb (since it's final consonant is one of 'T KOFSCHIP). The two right columns show a D-group weak verb:
| HOPEN | TO HOPE | DELEN | TO SHARE |
| Ik hoopte | I hoped | Ik deelde | I shared |
| Jij hoopte | You hoped | Jij deelde | You shared |
| Hij/zij hoopte | He/she hoped | Hij/zij deelde | He/she shared |
| Wij hoopten | We hoped | Wij deelden | We shared |
| Jullie hoopten | You hoped | Jullie deelden | You shared |
| Zij hoopten | They hoped | Zij deelden | They shared |
You notice the similarities in conjugation between the two types of weak verbs, one uses a T, and one uses a D. That's all there's to it, and with 'T KOFSCHIP you have an easy mnemonic tool for determining whether a 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 -EN.
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.
| Zijn: Ik was, jij was, hij was, wij waren, jullie waren, zij waren |
| Hebben: ik had, jij had, hij had, wij hadden, jullie hadden, zij hadden |
| Weten: wist |
| Zien: zag |
| Zeggen: Ik zei, jij zei, hij zei, wij zeiden, jullie zeiden, zij zeiden |
| Doen: deed |
| Spreken: sprak |
| Lopen: liep |
| Kijken: keek |
| Vliegen: vloog |
| Zwemmen: zwom |
| Komen: kwam |
| Geven: gaf |
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-". Participles of weak verbs are formed like this:
For D-group verbs:: GE- + PRESENT-TENSE-STEM + D
For T-group verbs:: GE- + PRESENT-TENSE-STEM + T
So the participles of the two weak verbs we have discussed will be "gehoopt" and "gedeeld", since the present-tense stem of "hopen" is "hoop", and that of "delen" is "deel". The participle of the strong verb is, as we already explained, irregular. In the case of our example it would be: "gelopen".
The Dutch present perfect and past perfect is composed exactly the same as in English. It consist of a form of the verb "hebben", and a participle. For our three example verbs we can construct the following scheme for the present perfect:
| HOPEN | DELEN | LOPEN |
| Ik heb gehoopt | Ik heb gedeeld | Ik heb gelopen |
| Jij hebt gehoopt | Jij hebt gedeeld | Jij hebt gelopen |
| Hij/zij heeft gehoopt | Hij/zij heeft gedeeld | Hij/zij heeft gelopen |
| Wij hebben gehoopt | Wij hebben gedeeld | Wij hebben gelopen |
| Jullie hebben gehoopt | Jullie hebben gedeeld | Jullie hebben gelopen |
| 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 |
| Zien: gezien |
| Zeggen: gezegd |
| Doen: gedaan |
| Spreken: gesproken |
| Lopen: gelopen |
| Kijken: gekeken |
| Vliegen: gevlogen |
| Zwemmen: gezwommen |
| Komen: gekomen |
| Geven: gegeven |
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.
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 |
| Jullie zouden zien | You would see |
| Zij zouden zien | They would see |
Before we end this lesson, we are going to have to take a closer look at the formation of participles. We learned that we can construct a participle for a weak verb by using the prefix "ge-", the present tense verb-stem and a final D or T. This is often the case, but not always.
There are verbs which already start with a common type of prefix. If this prefix is a meaningless one, the three most common ones being: "be-" and "ver-" and "ont-", then the prefix "ge-" is not needed anymore. For example, the participle of the verb "vertrouwen" ("to trust") is "vertrouwd" and never "*gevertrouwd". Another example: the participle of "bewaren" ("to save/to conserve") is "bewaard" and never "*gebewaard".
It is also possible that the verb start with a meaningful prefix derived from a preposition, such as the verb "uitstappen" ("to exit from something"). This verb starts with the prefix "uit" which is derived from the preposition "uit". Such verbs are quite common in Dutch and other Germanic languages. In this case you do use the prefix "ge" to form the participle, but the prefix is inserted AFTER the already existing prefix. So in this case we will obtain the participle: "uitgestapt" instead of "*geuitstapt"
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 |
It can go even further. If the verb can take a direct object and/or and indirect object, then the prefix moves all the way over those. The following is an example with the verb "uitzoeken" ("to select").
| Ik zoek een mooi boek uit | I select a nice book |
Well, that's enough material for this lesson. We have discussed some very important aspects of Dutch grammar, not all easy or obvious.
Exercise A: Translate to English
1) Ik zag de hond die jij ook had gezien.
2) Ik zal naar huis lopen tenzij ik al in het huis ben.
3) Ik hoopte dat jij het met me zou willen delen.
4) Hij liep door het huis tot hij bij de hond kwam.
5) Wij hebben de hond gezien.
6) Ik keek naar mijn vader terwijl hij liep.
7) Ik zal naar het huis kijken.
8) Hij zou komen als ik ook kom.
Exercise B: Translate to Dutch
1) I spoke with my father while we walked.
2) She had seen the man before you saw him.
3) We will come to your house.
4) I trusted him.
5) I choose/select a bike for my father.
6) They would see the house.
7) He came because he saw me.
Solutions to Exercise A
1) I saw the dog that you saw too.
2) I will walk to the house unless I already am in the house.
3) I hoped you would share it with me.
4) He walked through the house until he came to the dog (until he reached the dog).
5) We have seen the dog.
6) I looked at my father while he walked.
7) I will look at the house.
8) He would come if he come too.
Solutions to Exercise B
1) I sprak met mijn vader terwijl we liepen.
2) Ze had de man gezien voor jij hem zag.
3) We zullen naar jouw huis komen.
4) I vertrouwde hem.
5) Ik zoek een fiets uit voor mijn vader.
6) Zij zouden het huis zien.
7) Hij kwam omdat hij me zag.
In our previous lesson we have obtained a lot of information about Dutch verbs. However, we have not yet found the time to discuss reflexive verbs. That we will do now.
Reflexive verbs are accompanied by a so-called reflexive pronoun. The following table illustrates the reflexive verb "to wash oneself" and the Dutch equivalent "zich wassen". Note that in these infinitive verbs forms, we can already note the reflexive pronoun "zich" ("oneself")
| Ik was me | I wash myself |
| Jij wast je | You wash yourself |
| Hij wast zich | He washes himself |
| Zij wast zich | She washes herself |
| Wij wassen ons | We wash ourselves |
| Jullie wassen je | You wash yourselves |
| Zij wassen zich | They wash themselves |
Every Dutch reflexive pronoun can also be found with the suffix "-zelf" which will make them resemble the English form more.
In English, we are all familiar with the continuous tense, better known as the "-ing" tense. In Dutch you will find this less, but it does exist. While in English we use "to be +ing", the Dutch use "zijn aan het +infinitive". Consider the following example:
| Ik ben aan het lopen | I am walking |
| Jij bent aan het lopen | You are walking |
| Hij/zij is aan het lopen | He/she is walking |
| Wij zijn aan het lopen | We are walking |
| Jullie zijn aan het lopen | You are walking |
| Zij zijn aan het lopen | They are walking |
Do not forget though, that this is used far less than in English, so you shouldn't substitute every English continuous tense with this Dutch construction. Instead, the Dutch present tense usually suffices.
Adjectives and adverbs can be modified according to degrees of comparison to their meaning BIGGER or BIGGEST. In English we obtain sets of three like: "late - later - latest". In Dutch this is exactly the same: "laat - later - laatst". There is no difference whatsoever.
And the analogy goes further. We can say "the latest" in English. In Dutch we get: "het laatst" and when we are using it adjectively we have to make it agree with the noun gender and number, so the article can change and the adjective can get an extra E as the following table illustrates:
| Het laatste uur | The latest hour |
| De laatste minuut | The latest minute |
| De laatste uren | The latest hours |
When used as an adverb we don't need the extra E but we can't omit the article as in English.
| Ik kom het laatst | I come [the] latest |
Now we will take a look at comparisons of inequality and later we will discuss comparisons of equality. The sentence below illustrates a comparison of inequality:
| Ik ben groter dan jij | I am bigger than you |
| Hij is kleiner dan wij | He is smaller than we |
And an example of comparisons of equality:
| Ik ben even groot als jij | I am as big as you |
| Hij is even klein als wij | He is as small as we |
An alternative way of saying this is possible too:
| Ik ben net zo groot als jij | I am [just] as big as you |
| Hij is net zo klein als wij | He is [just] as small as we |
In this lesson we will discuss some small issues we haven't gotten around yet. You will see things you might have been wanting to know all along..
In Dutch there is a suffix "-je" that will make a noun small. For example, adding "-je" to "huis" generates "huisje", meaning "little house". You will often see such small nouns in Dutch. Note that they all are of neuter gender and therefore use the article "het" in singular.
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Unlike in English, the days of the week do not receive a capital first letter.
| Monday | maandag |
| Tuesday | dinsdag |
| Wednesday | woensdag |
| Thursday | donderdag |
| Friday | vrijdag |
| Saturday | zaterdag |
| Sunday | zondag |
The preposition used to point at day is always "op". However, there is also an alternative construction using "'s" and the name of the day appended by an extra S.
| Ik kom op maandag | I come on Monday |
| Ik kom 's maandags | I come on Monday |
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.
There is still a verb tense we have left undiscussed: the so-called imperative tense/mood. This is used to give commands and is very easy to use in Dutch because like in English, it simply consists of the present tense stem:
| Kom! | Come! |
| Loop! | Walk! |
We can also form this into a "Let's ..." expression using "Laten we" plus the infinitive verb:
| Laten we lopen! | Let's walk! |
| Laten we vliegen! | Let's fly! |
Below you will see a very extensive scheme that will show you words like "somebody":
| Unspecific | Interrogative | Specific | All-inclusive | All-exclusive | |
| Quality | Some/any kind of | What kind of? | That kind of, such a | Every kind of, all kinds of | No kind of |
| Een soort | Wat voor soort? | Dat soort, zo'n [soort] | Elk soort | Geen [enkel] soort | |
| Reason | For some reason | Why? | Therefore, so | For every reason | For no reason |
| Om één of andere reden | Waarom? | Daarom | Om alles | Nergens om | |
| Time | Sometime, anytime, ever | When? | Then | Always | Never |
| Ooit, eens | Wanneer? | Dan | Altijd | Nooit | |
| Location | Somewhere, anywhere | Where? | There | Everywhere | Nowhere |
| Ergens | Waar? | Daar | Overal | Nergens | |
| Direction | Somewhere, anywhere | Where to? | [to] there | [to] everywhere | [to] nowhere |
| Ergens [heen] | Waarheen? | Daarheen | Overal naartoe | Nergens naartoe | |
| Manner | Somehow, anyhow | How? | Like that, so | In every way | In no way |
| Op één of andere manier | Hoe? | Zo | Op elke manier | Op geen enkele manier | |
| Possession | Someone's, anyone's | Whose? | That one's, his, hers, theirs | Everybody's, everyone's | Nobody's |
| Iemand's | Wiens? | zijn,haar,hun | Iedereen's | Niemand's | |
| Object | Something, anything | What? | That | Everything | Nothing |
| Iets | Wat? | Dat | Alles | Niets, niks | |
| Quantity | Some | How much?, How many? | That/so much, That/so many | All [of it] | None [of it] |
| Enige | Hoeveel? | Zo veel | Alles | Niets | |
| Person | Somebody, anybody | Who? | That one, he,she,they | Everybody, everyone | Nobody |
| Iemand | Wie? | Die, hij, zij, hen | Iedereen | Niemand | |
| Adjective | Some, any | which?, what? | That | Every, each, all | None, no |
| Enig, enige | Welke? | Die | Elke, alle | Geen enkele, none |
This is the end of the basic Dutch course. Now you've learned some of the basics of this fascinating language. In the future we might create a part three of this course but for now this is all. But you can learn more by visiting the UniLang Public Bookmarks or by taking a look at the Basic Wordlist Dutch.
Thanks for your interest in this course! If you discovered any mistakes or you just want to say something then please let us know 
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