Author Archives: Niki

Two days ago Wednesday was the 12th class by ROC Mondriaan. I must admit that that is another example of something that is simpler to say in Dutch – eergisteren means ‘the day before yesterday’ and overmorgen means ‘the day after tomorrow’. Just like the movie…

Anyway, one random thing we learned on Wednesday was the difference between even, effe, en ff.

Even = (a-ven, with a hard a) is hard to translate at times. It’s generally used to make commands or statements softer/politer. And probably other usages I don’t know yet. It’s harder for non-Dutchies to grasp.

Effe = street version of the same word. Pronounced f-fa (short a).

ff = even shorter version used for texting. Yep, they abbreviate a four letter word into a two letter word. (And English is just as guilty of that.)

We had another writing exercise. This time about the sports that we like or don’t like, and whether we participate in sports as well. (I like to watch sports on tv. But I definitely don’t participate in any.)

Amusingly this chapter was called media en comunicatie (media and communication) and the chapter opened with a brief story from a librarian. Because of my background in libraries, the teacher asked me to talk a little bit about libraries in general and also read the brief story. I did pretty well with the pronunciation – luckily there were not too many annoying words in the text.

We found out that we have a test for synonyms on Wednesday. Couple that with the test on Monday and I suddenly have something to study for. Should be fun… But it is getting a bit more interesting now, as we get random information that isn’t found in the textbook itself. So it is going well.

In this Dutch class we randomly looked at the vowel changes that occur in Dutch when a verb changes from the present tense to the simple past and to the present perfect. Some groups of irregular verbs can be studied as groups because their vowels change in a predictable pattern. For example, ij in the present tense, ee in the simple past, and e in the present perfect.

(to receive) krijgen -> kreeg -> gekregen

(to write) schrijven -> schreef -> geschreven

(to stay) blijven -> bleef -> gebleven

(to iron) strijken -> streek -> gestreken

(to drive) rijden -> reed -> gereden

At some point earlier this year I was reading something that made me realize the exact same phenomenon occurs in the English language as well. Of course, these examples are listed as the “craziest verb changes” on the linked page.

i -> a -> u

beginnen  to begin -> began -> begun
drinken  to drink -> drank -> drunk
bellen  to ring -> rang -> rung
zingen  to sing -> sang -> sung
springen to spring -> sprang -> sprung
zwemmen to swim -> swam -> swum

In other news, on Monday we have a test for chapters 1 through 3. Nothing major – it’s mainly for us to see where we are at and the teacher to see where we are at.

Here are the notes that I had taken:

I kept the photo a bit larger so my crazy handwriting could actually be deciphered. One nice thing I have noticed is that I tend to write most of my notes in Dutch these days, with the exception of word definitions. I try to write those in Dutch, but sometimes English is much simpler and quicker.

The one thing I haven’t quite got the hand of is the abbreviation for page. While Dutch use both pagina and bladzijde to mean ‘page’, they tend to use the latter more often and thus use ‘blz’ for the abbreviation. My English habits of ‘pg. #’ die hard, it seems.

Until next time!

One of the random things we learned in class last night was the difference between leuk and gezellig. While leak can translate to ‘fun’, gezellig is a bit harder to translate. The usual translation given is ‘cozy’, especially in terms of warm feelings.

He said the difference between leuk and gezellig is that something gezellig can only be done with another person, not by yourself. Leuk is generally something you yourself find fun, though it can also be said of a group.

Another nice thing about the Wednesday night class is sometimes we do the exercises more than one time. While I don’t really need the help (I’m not kidding – this class is basically 95% review for me), it is nice for the other students. For example, last night we repeated the same exercise three times. The first time was just to state the answers. The second time was to find the verbs and circle them, and explain that if the verb was plural, the subject also needed to be plural (which for some students is a helpful trick to find the subject). The third and last time was to switch both the subject and the verb into plural or single – the opposite of what the sentence was originally.

Another interesting side note that he had was over the word nogal which translates to ‘rather’ in English. He then compared that to other, similar words.

Het is een beetje duur. Ik koop het. It’s a little expensive. I (will) buy it.

Het is nogal duur. Misschien koop ik het. It’s rather expensive. I might buy it.

Het is heel (erg) duur. Ik koop ik niet. It’s very expensive. I will not buy it.

He is also a fan of synonyms  (just ask Marco who had to look over my homework ;)).  The teacher mentioned that a synonym for ‘nogal’ is ‘tamelijk’.

So although the classes are mostly review, I do learn a lot of random things, and I do think it is helping improve my vocabulary.

Yesterday’s class was interesting to say the least. The main grammatical thing discussed was “Er”, a small little word that usually doesn’t translate that well. In the simplest sense, however, it is translatable. Er is  or Er zijn translates to There is or There are. It is used with subjects that are considered onbepaald/undetermined, that is, the subject of the sentence is something not that well known. While it isn’t something that you think a lot about in English, it has the same basic rules in both languages.

For instance – De vrouw stat voor de deur, or The woman stood before the door. In English and Dutch, the use of “The” and “De” implies that the woman is known, likely that she was referred to in a previous sentence.

But if the woman isn’t known yet, or is “undetermined”, than in Dutch you can use Er is. Example: Er is een vrouw voor de deur. There is a woman before the door.

Er loopt niemand op straat. (There walks no one in the street, or less awkwardly – No one walks in the street.)

Er ligt een boek op tafel.  (There lies a book on the table, or less awkwardly – There is a book on the table.)

Of course, the above two examples provide translation frustration because they use the “positional” verbs to describe an object. liggen = to lie, zitten = to sit, staan = to stand, and lopen = to walk. There’s a fifth one that is less used hangen = to hang. These five verbs are used to describe the position of someone or something. It’s something that I don’t quite have the hang of yet and need to practice more. A lot more!

The fourth post in this link explains things a bit better than I could, although they don’t always translate the Dutch. If needed, open two copies of the url and translate one of them but not the other. Or use Google translate as needed. ;p