learn me some Dutch

Pfff where to start ...


Jammer PSV? Make that 'kneuterig PSV' :wink: With Kezman and Robben gone, I have the feeling this footballseason will get very hard for PSV < sigh >


I can imagine you're confused, I should have compared a regular with an irregular verb. Now, 'leven' (to live) is a regular verb; 'zijn' (to be) is an irregular verb.

First the regular verb (leven - to live):

I live = Ik leef
You live (singular) = Jij leeft
He/She/It lives = Hij/Zij/Het leeft
We live = Wij leven
You live (plural) = Jullie leven
They live = Zij leven

I lived = Ik leefde
You lived (singular) = Jij leefde
He/She/It lived = Hij/Zij/Het leefde
We lived = Wij leefden
You lived (plural) = Jullie leefden
They lived = Zij leefden

Now the irregular verb (zijn - to be):

I am = Ik ben
You are (singular) = Jij bent
He/She/It is = Hij/Zij/Het is
We are = Wij zijn
You are (plural) = Jullie zijn
They are = Zij zijn

I was = Ik was
You were (singular) = Jij was
He/She/It was = Hij/Zij/Het was
We were = Wij waren
You were (plural) = Jullie waren
They were = Zij waren

Now, what's the main difference between these two verbs? The regular verb always has the following conjugation:

The singular forms are always - that is, in present and past tense - comprimised out of one single stem. In the case of 'leven', de stem is 'leef'. (present) 'Ik leef; hij leeft; hij/zij/het leeft; (past) ik leefde; jij leefde; hij/zij/het leefde.

Now, when we are talking about the plural forms of a regular verb, you see that the past is also comprised out of the stem - wij leefden; jullie leefden; zij leefden.
However, the present plural of 'leven' is: wij leven; jullie leven; zij leven. The full verb. With regular verbs, it's ALWAYS this way in present and past tense:

all singular forms and plural past tense forms always have one and the same stem in it, while the plural present tense forms are always the full verb.


Now, the irregular verbs. As you may see, the rule stated above does not apply to them. Just take a look at 'zijn' (to be) and you'll see that the verb has no stem that applies for both singular and plural forms. Now, keep in mind though that 'zijn' is a VERY irregular verb. Most irregular verbs aren't that difficult.

Example:

'Lopen' (to walk).

Present tense:

Ik loop (I walk)
Jij loopt (You walk)
Hij/Zij/Het loopt (He/She/It walks)
Wij lopen (We walk)
Jullie lopen (You walk)
Zij lopen (They walk)

Past tense:

Ik liep (I walked)
Jij liep (You walked)
Hij/Zij/Het liep (He/She/It walked)
Wij liepen (We walked)
Jullie liepen (You walked)
Zij liepen (They walked)

The huge difference here is simply that the singular present tense stem of 'loop' becomes 'liep', and that the plural 'lopen' becomes 'liepen'.


Ehh it's 'Nederland', niet 'Netherland', but that's just a minor detail. How come you know so much about Dutch dròm_et_rêve? It's really good!

Ahh, makes sense. When I was trying to differentiate it from other meanings of "Dutch" I plugged "dutch language" into babel and it must have seen it as being an adjective to a noun.



I've always loved languages, and used to work with language a lot.

I wanted to learn French, German, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese. I got Portuguese down and subsequently Spanish would just be a matter of hanging out with a spanish speaker for a bit.

Anywho, I ended up devoting my free time to learning languages, but they ended up being computer and programming languages.

I lived with a South African for a bit, and became interested in Dutch through Afrikaans.

I figure it will be an good addition to my short list because of its germanic relative.

Anywho, actually starting here began with an exchange with Rick.

Ik kom om Bostonians te eten.

object+verb?

"Ik wil haar eten"?

YES, that's it. Ik wil haar eten (strange sentence, by the way :wink: ) is 100% correct.

Just another thing: do you know the articles in Dutch? I mean 'de', 'het' en 'een'?

I'm working through this one now.

Is it correct that the regular conjugation is basically just divided between singular and plural more so than in collocation with a pronoun?

de = The?

I don't know the others.

Yes, you could say it like that. Of course you have 'ik leef' en 'jij leeft' with regular verbs, but concerning regular verbs, that's the only real difference. For the rest, it indeed depends on whether it is singular or plural.


Both 'de' and 'het' should be translated as 'the'. The article 'een' should be translated as 'a(n)'. It can be quite confusing though. Point is that 'de' and 'het' are not - like the German 'der', 'die' and 'das' - linked with a possible male, female or neutral ending. It is 'de man' (the man), but also 'de vrouw' (the woman). It could be that there is a rule behind the use of 'de' and 'het', but I'll have to look that up. I can only say that most words have 'de' as their article; it think it's about 80% 'de' and 20% 'het'.

Whoops; that was a spelling mistake on my part-- Netherland, that is. And thanks, Rick, but my Dutch really is not that good; I know rules, but don't get to practise them much. I lived in Bruxelles, which is more a Francophone town, I found, so I got around speaking French and starting learning bits of Flemish (is this really different from Dutch standard? -- I tend to think of Flemish first, you see), but then I left Belgium to live down in Argentina before I could become anywhere comprehensible.

There are a few rules on when to use Het instead of De. Neuter (het) nouns comprise of all the diminuitives, names of animals of both sexes, and most things ending with -D.. as for other rules, I've forgotten, but I will try to dig out my old books to see.

Fantastic, Craven. I devote most of my time to languages, too, but due to demands, my proficiency in different languages is vastly different-- I spend most of my time on French, but I have the demand of keeping a near-dead language from a few centuries ago up to date with others. Language learning and literature have always been what I enjoyed studying most through education (though I liked studying nearly anything...) the former of which because I just like talking to people.

Dutch is a good way of approaching the Germanic before taking the big, confusing leap into German. I've always wanted to speak Hungarian; maybe I will, this year. I think that Afrikaans is more regular than Dutch.

Well Flemish isn't much of a difference from Dutch actually. My history teacher was a Belgian man, and he spoke Flemish, and it's just Dutch with a "weird" accent actually :wink: That also explains why you use 'U' instead of 'Jij'. It's true that Brussel (the Dutch/Flemish translation) is Francophone. For what I know is that even most Flemish people in the Belgian capital use French.


Well that is not quite true. It's 'de kat' (the cat); 'de hond' (the dog); 'de beer' (the bear); 'de koe' (the cow); 'de leeuw' (the lion) etc. I do not think that you are correct on this one.

But it's 'dat dier' - obvioulsy the same rules re neuter as in German.

dròm_et_rêve wrote:


I can speak and write German (nearly) without any mistakes - can't be such difficult so

What do you exactly mean with that?

Nothing really important: animal articles in Dutch are the same as in German, and 'the animal' is neutrum.

I didn't express myself properly; I meant 'names of animals when there is one distinct form for male and one for female;' -- like 'het mannetje' and 'het vrouwtje.'

Oh, and words taken from verbal stems beginning with be, ver and ge are neuter, aren't they? Het gezang, het besluit, het bewijs, etc?

Oh; so most Dutch people use jij instead of U? Is the variation in the Netherlands itself very great? (Like, for instance, the difference between Scotch and Standard English?)

I'm not saying that German is impossible, Walter; I'm just saying that it takes quite a while to get all the rules implanted into one's head...

Speaking as someone, who had to judge university thesises: Too true, too true :wink:

Well I wouldn't say that there is such a big difference as there is between Scotch and Standard English. However, someone from Limburg (the real deep south) is even for me (who lives in the south too) hard to understand, when he speaks his dialect. The same would go for someone from the north, like Groningen (and of course I can't understand Frisians, but they speak Frisian, not even Dutch). I do think for such a small country there is a huge amount of dialects.

I just want to let y'all know that I'll be revisiting this project when I have time. I started a new job and have been spending lots of my off-time out of my home so I haven't had much a2k time.

But I'll be back, and for now I'm not asking any more questions till I absorb drom's pronunciation guide and Rick's conjugation lessons.

Congratulations about the new job, Craven! Everyone will be here for when you come back, but you're wise to prioritise on this.

It's amazing to think that you have that many dialects. Is it hard to understand Frisian, considering that you speak both English and Dutch?

It's hard for me to understand Frisian. Don't forget it's a total different language. It's a sort of mixed language with some words which look very much like English, as well as Dutch and German.