Learning Dutch

In today’s blog post we are going to learn about a small word called te in the present tense, sometimes part of a phrase  om … te. It usually gives the listener a bit more information about why you said something in your sentence – try making the first part a statement and then inserting a question word (why, what, when, etc)  in the middle of sentence and it will become a bit clearer that what follows after is more information and/or an answer.

It also sometimes be translated as “in order to” in English (old English had something similar which was dropped in modern English).

De kat ligt op de tafel om te slapen. The cat lies on the table to sleep.

De kat ligt op de tafel. Waarom? Om te slapen. The cat lies on the table. Why? To sleep.

De was hangt buiten om te drogen. The laundry hangs outside to dry.

De was hangt buiten. Waarom? Om te drogen. The laundry hangs outside. Why? To dry.

Note: Om and te are not always next to each other in the sentence. But the one rule you can follow is that om begins the phrase and te comes right before the last infinitive in the sentence (although we will not get into double infinitive construction here, which happens in the present perfect and past perfect).

Het is leuk om jou weer te zien. It is nice to see you again. (Literally: It is nice to you again see.)

There are a few lists of verbs which take te in the present tense. I will split them up into two groups because they have different rules in other tenses.

verb + te + infinitive (verb group 1)

1. staan – to stand
2. zitten – to sit
3. liggen – to lie / lay
4. lopen – to walk – Ik loop de hele dag aan het examen te denken. I thought about the exam all day.
5. hangen – to hang
6. durven – to dare
7. hoeven – to need (usually used in negative sentences, i.e. Ik hoef geen jas. I don’t need a jacket.)

The astute student will realize that the first five in orange are part of a group in and of itself – these five verbs are frequently used to describe a more continuous action and the physical state of the subject while the action occurs.  Thus the example above about thinking about the exam all day – most people are still going about their normal business and walking around while doing so.

 verb + te + infinitive (verb group 2)

Again, these two groups are only split because the rule for other tenses, not covered here, are different. Thus it is better to learn them separately.

1. beginning – to begin Ik begin Nederlands te leren. I begin to learn Dutch.
2. beloven – to promise Ik beloof om eerder thuis te zijn. I promise to be home earlier. (see how ‘eerder thuis’ gets put in between om … te
3. besluiten – to decide
4. beweren – to claim
5. dreigen – to threaten
6. proberen – to try
7. hopen – to hope
8. weigeren – to refuse
9. vergeten – to forget

verbs that do not use te (in any tense)

There is also a special list of verbs that do not use te at all (at least within the same clause). These include some very common verbs.

The five auxiliary/helper verbs:  mogen, moeten, zullen, kunnen, willen

And other well known verbs: laten, gaan, komen, blijven, zien

Mag ik hier roken? May I smoke here?

Mijn buurman wil een nieuwe auto kopen. My neighbor wants to buy a new car.

Another Dutch lesson tonight. I believe that I posted about something similar last month, but it can’t hurt to have another example. Our teacher reviewed how to dissect a sentence again – and more specifically, figure out the various ways to move around the sentence parts to change where the emphasis lies. Take this sentence for example:

Naar alle waarschijnlijkheid gaat mijn oudste dochter komend weekend met de trein naar haar oom en tante in Limburg. With all likelihood my oldest daughter will take the train this weekend to (visit/see) her aunt and uncle in Limburg.

Now break up the sentence into parts that logically “go” together (and cannot be separated), or die zinsdelen die bij elkaar horen.

Naar alle waarschijnlijkheid || gaat || mijn oudste dochter || komend weekend || met de trein || naar haar oom en tante in Limburg. 

Now label (as much as possible) what the various parts of the sentence are. gaat is the verb, mijn oudste dochter is the subject, komend weekend is an expression of time, met de trein is a manner of how to do something, naar haar oom en tante in Limburg and also naar alle waarschijnlijkheid are prepositional phrases which give extra information.

Now attempt to rewrite the sentence, with other elements besides “naar alle waarschijnlijkheid” beginning the sentence. (This will be possible with all of them except the last one, as beginning with Naar <plaats> is a bit clunky.)

The biggest rule to remember: the subject (mijn oudste dochter) can be in the first position, the second position (with a question) or the third position right after the verb in the second position (when another phrase starts the sentence, like above). In simple sentences the subject and verb are always next to each other.

1.  Mijn oudste dochter || gaat || naar alle waarschijnlijkheid  || komend weekend || met de trein || naar haar oom en tante in Limburg. (Emphasis: who goes?)

2. Komend weekend || gaat || mijn oudste dochter  || naar alle waarschijnlijkheid  ||  met de trein || naar haar oom en tante in Limburg. (Emphasis: when do you go?)

3. Met de trein || gaat || mijn oudste dochter || naar alle waarschijnlijkheid  || komend weekend  || naar haar oom en tante in Limburg. (Emphasis: how do you go?) This is more clunky – for the simple fact that if someone asked you how went somewhere, you are much more likely to say simply “Met de trein.” and not state all of the information above; you’ve probably already told them everything.

Thus in total you have four decent ways to manipulate the sentence to change the emphasis.

I suggest trying this trick on a few sentences you pull out of the newspaper, especially if you are still learning about proper word order for Dutch sentences. 😉

Technically I had another Dutch lesson last night but there was no new grammar so it is harder to figure out blog post themes. So let’s write about something different – tests!

Final exams for Dutch school children started on Monday.These tests are administrated for children 12 years and older. You can see this year’s schedule (in Dutch).

Of course we had the same sort of tests in America, although the concept of taking the same test as everyone in the country is a bit foreign to me. Our end-of-year exams were generally written by the teacher. However, during the school year itself we would sometimes have to take standardized tests, where everyone in the state and in the same grade level would take the test on the same day. These tests would be used to measure achievement levels within the state. Standardized testing became even more prevalent after 2002 when the No Child Left Behind Act was passed.

Imagine my surprise when I heard that another feature of the Dutch eindexamens (final exams) was the ability to call a number and complain! They received over 7,000 complaints the first day (in Dutch). At times it was over 100 complaints per minute. Generally the complaints are that the test is too difficult or the student did not have enough time to finish the test – if enough people complain, they look at the test and decide whether they need to adjust it and give higher marks. The service also receives complaints for things like too much noise from construction outside; the complaint is then forwarded to the school.

It just seems so strange. Maybe we had the option to call a number and complain when I was a kid – but I never heard about it.

And one of the weirder complaints so far this week – a student complained when he had to sit behind another student who had pimples on his neck (Dutch article), which he found too distracting to be able to concentrate properly on his test.  Okay then…

Vacation is over and it’s back to the studying grind. (Well, I did my homework over vacation, so there was some studying involved.)

Yesterday’s lesson we had a refresher course (or een herhaling) for reflexive verbs and how they are conjugated. Things like I shave myself or Don’t kid yourself – the subject of the sense is the same as the object of the sentence. Of course, English tends leave off the reflexive part for someone words. Consider I bathe versus I bathe myself. The first is more likely.

There are not many reflexive pronouns in Dutch. Only me, je (u), zich, and ons. Take the verb scheren (to shave):

ik scheer me
jij scheert je
u scheert zich / u
hij / zij scheert zich
wij scheren ons
jullie scheren je
zij scheren zich

Unfortunately there is no rule to determine which verbs are reflexive – it is just something dat je uit je hoofd moet leren (that you have to learn out of your head / memorize).

There are three rules regarding the placement of a reflexive pronoun:

In the main clause after the conjugated verb
– Ik douche me elke morgen.
– Hij verbaast zich regelmatig over Nederlanders.

In cases of inversion, after the subject
– Gisteren meldde hij zich ziek.
– Regelmatie verbaast hij zich over Nederlands.

In a subordinate clause after the subject
– Hij zegt dat hij zich bij die belissing heeft neergelegd.
– Ik denk dat hij zich regelmatie over Nederlanders verbaast.

And finally, a fun example of how crazy things can get when you add in reflexive pronouns:

Herinner je je je oma?

je = subject, then je = reflexive pronoun, finally je = your

Do you remember your grandmother? Though you can ask that question without using a reflexive verb as well.

I did not take many notes for last night’s course, although I did take a picture of one of the exercise sheets we were given:

It looks pretty simple but there are some tricky parts to these. The point of the exercise is to determine if the verb ends in -t (present tense), -d (present perfect tense) or -dt (could be either).

1. Ik hoop maar dat hij alles vertelt.

The trick with this one is realizing that the dependent clause (dat hij alles vertelt) is in the present tense, so you cannot use the kofschip rule. If you are not sure which it is, you can always try replacing the verb (vertellen) with a simpler verb like doen and see how you would conjugate that.

2. Je moet wel doen wat je belooft.

Again, the dependent clause is in the present tense so it is a simple -t.

3. Ik hoorde dat hij een vermogen verdient. (Same as above – present tense.)

4. Met haar heb ik heel veel beleefd.

Here is a trick – the original verb is beleven, but the v turns into an f in some tenses. However, since it is in the perfectum you can use the kofschip rule linked to above. In that case, you still need to use the v to determine what the ending is, not the f. Because of this, the verb ends in -d (since there is no ‘v’ in kofschip). If that does not make sense to you because you don’t live in the Netherlands, please forgive me. ;p

5. Is de post nu weer verkeerd bezorgd?

The tense is perfectum (present perfect) so you look at the last letter of the root verb (g). Since ‘g’ is not in kofschip, the verb ends with a -d.

The exercise is harder than it looks… apparently even native Dutch speakers can have trouble with the d/t/dt conundrum.

Just for fun, here is a random picture from a garden in The Hague, taken a few weeks ago:

And now Marco and I are off to check out the Life I Live festival in The Hague. Seeya!