Learning Dutch

We had an interesting assignment today. It definitely makes you think a bit – and doubly so about how language works in general and how your brain perceives things. We received a text about the Nuclear Summit which occurred in The Hague last month, except that all of the punctuation and capital letters had been stripped away. It as our job to find them all.

It doesn’t sound that hard if it’s your native language, but you would encounter some difficulty when it is not. Especially with knowing where one sentence ends and the next one begins.

One thing to keep in mind: adding commas to signal when ‘extra’ information was given, i.e. information which is not strictly required. In English these are called non-restrictive clauses. (On the other side of the coin you have restrictive clauses, which signal important information and thus do not get commas).

Sindsdien geldt de top, die reeds twee keer is gehouden, als een van de meest prestigieuze topconferenties ter wereld.

Since then the top, which has already been held twice, has obtained the distinction of one of the most prestigious conferences of the world.

Note: instead of using commas to signify extra information you can also use two dashes.

Last week Monday we had a short test (one page, front and back) covering chapter 3, or landscape. Sometimes it’s the little things that help – even if you feel like a nerd for studying.

And what can I say – I accidentally managed to frame the image pretty well, with the book above and the pencil to the left.

The main thing that we learned last night was the the various functions of zullen (to “will”) and zouden (the past tense of the same verb). Zullen is a auxiliary/helper verb used for the future tense. However, it is not as simple as translating it as “going to”, because the Dutch tend to either use gaan (to go) or the simple present tense when talking about the future. Ik ga morgen naar het strand. I go to the beach tomorrow. Morgen kom ik thuis. Tomorrow I come home.

Four functions of zullen: 

1. to make a proposal. Zullen we naar het strand gaan? Should we go to the beach?

2. to promise to do something (sometimes with the word wel). Ik zal morgen koken. I will cook tomorrow.

3. Conveying a strong expectation, though it is not 100% certain. Jullie zullen wel goed Nederlands leren. You (all) shall learn Dutch well.

4. a very strong resolution to do something, with accent on zal and zullen. Ik zál volgend jaar mijn diploma halen. 

Five functions of zou/zouden (past tense of zullen):

1. A polite question or request. Form:

zou(den) + kunnen/willen/mogen + infinitive

Zou je dit werk willen afmaken? Do you want to finish/complete this work?  Zou ik misschien morgen jouw auto kunnen lenen? Can I maybe borrow your car tomorrow (implied ‘please’)?

2. Uncertainty. Form:

zou(den) + infinitive

Zou hij ziek zijn? Could he be sick?

3A. Something unrealistic. Form:

Zou(den) + infinitive, often combined with als and the verb in the past tense.

Als iedereen aardig zou zijn, zou de wereld beter zijn. If everyone would be nice, the world would be better.

3B. A wish. Forms 1 and 2:

zou(den) + graag (+ willen) + infinitive

zou(den) + wel + willen + infinitive

Ik zou wel eens miljoen euro willen winnen. I would like to win a million euros.

Ik zou graag miljoen euro winnen. I would like to win a million euros.

4. Giving advice. Form generally starts with Als.

Als ik jou was, zou ik een Ferrari kopen. If I were you, I would buy a Ferrari.

5. A reminder of an appointment or promise. Form:

zou(den) + toch + infinitive

Jij zou toch met de fiets naar school komen? You are definitely coming to school with the bike?

 * * * * * * 

If you are interested you can take a test about zullen / zouden at this link.

When I worked at my last position someone always remarked about the state of the Dutch language and how it is slowly degrading. Some people I talk with remark about the misuse of hun (their, them – when it’s a indirect object) vs. hen (them – when it’s an direct object).

And what are direct and indirect objects again?

Ik gaf het aan haar. I gave it to her.

het = direct object

haar = indirect object

Thus you can see a sentence like this:

Ik heb _____ gezien. (you are filling in the direct object)

hen = correct (for persons only)

hun = not correct, but often heard

ze = used for persons OR things

So what do we use hun for again? Possession of items.

Ik heb hun fiets gezien. I have seen their bike.

And what about prepositions? Because we all know those are just made to complicate things…

When preceded by a preposition, use hen (door hen, aan hen, voor hen).

And how did I get to the B2 level without realizing this?

As mentioned above, the unmarked/unstressed form for direct objects is ze. Thus: Ik heb ze gezien. is acceptable provided you are not emphasizing ‘them’.

If you can read Dutch, this is a very fun article to read. Kofschip op de klippen. It’s about a Dutch family which moved to the US, with the mother realizing that the children’s Dutch was being taken over by English phrases. Opening example: Ik heb de team gemaakt. (English – I made the team). Better Dutch: Ik wordt gekozen voor het team. I have been chosen for the team. (Note January 2016: it should be Ik word gekozen… the t was a typo.)

Last night’s grammatical topic was the passive form of sentences. These are sentences where the thing or person doing the action is not stated or is stated indirectly by using a preposition (by, through) so that the subject’s responsibility for the action is minimized. Here are some examples in Dutch. The tenses are present, simple past, present perfect and past perfect, in that order.

Active, het/een (or the/a) does not matter as much.

Hij bouwt het huis. He builds the house.
Hij bouwde het huis. He built the house.
Hij heeft het huis gebouwd. He has built the house.
Hij had het huis gebouwd. He had built the house.

Passive, where the object is known – i.e. het/the instead of een/a.

Het huis wordt gebouwd. The house is built.
Het huis werd gebouwd. The house was built.
Het huis is gebouwd. The house has been built.
Het huis was gebouwd. The house had been built.

(Anything else noticing the ‘fun’ problem where English using is/was for present and simple past, but Dutch uses that convention for present and past perfect? Yeah, it’s fun. Try not to think about it and you’ll actually have less issues!)

Passive, where the object is not known – i.e. een/a.

Things change a bit when you have an object which is not known, like “a house” versus “the house”. In that case it is much more common to use Er when using the passive form. 

Er wordt een huis gebouwd. There is a house built. (English=clunky)
Er werd een huis gebouwd. There was a house built.
Er is een huis gebouwd. There has been a house built.
Er was een huis gebouwd. There had been a house built.

You can hint at who did the action as well. In Dutch this is usually done by the preposition door. It is still passive because the emphasis on who or what did the action is downplayed (great for politicians!).

Het huis was gebouwd door Habitat for Humanity. The house had been built by Habitat for Humanity.

Er wordt een huis gebouwd door Habitat for Humanity. A house had been built by Habitat for Humanity.

One of the things that was mentioned in last night’s class was the subject of compound nouns. Dutch, like German, has some pretty long words because it is in the habit of sticking words together more often than not.

The subject came about because of a dictee that we were asked to write (dictees are when a teacher recites a sentence and you have to write it a they say it out loud). Here was our dictee:

Er wordt vermoedt dat het taal- en rekenniveau in het basisonderwijs de internationale concurrentiepositie van een land bepaalt. It is suspected that the language and math level in elementary education determines the international competitiveness of a country. What a mouthful.

(If you’re keeping track at home, I misspelled vermoedt as vermoet because I had never heard of the verb before. I should have realized worden + verb would require the use of the present perfect after. I also misspelled rekenniveau as rekenenniveau – that was just a mistake of not listening carefully and thinking there was an extra syllable. I didn’t realize concurrentiepositie was a compound noun, and thus one word, though I correctly knew basisonderwijs was. I also originally wrote bepaalt as bepaald, getting the tense wrong until I realized it was simply present tense. I figured that one out though myself.)

But I digress… basisonderwijs is elementary education, but it’s actually made up of two words smushed together. basis onderwijs. The Dutch like to do that a lot, though you’ll usually see an s in between. When I go home from work I frequently see a sign “waarschuwingslichten buiten gebruik”, or warning lights are out of order. waarschuwing (warning) lichten (lights) with an s in between to help the pronunciation transition between words.

The main rule about compound words is that the last word determines the gender of the entire word. 

de taal, het niveau = het taalniveau

You can create compound nouns in Dutch using four methods:

1) two nouns: het theekopje (de thee + het kopje = cup of tea)

2) adjective + noun: de groothandel (groot + de handel = wholesale)

3) preposition + noun: de tegenspeller (tegen + de speller = opponent)

4) stem form of verb + noun: de eetkamer (eet [stem form of eten] + de kamer = dining room)

A few weeks ago we had a minor test over chapters 1 and 2 in the textbook. Nothing too bad – you had to complete a few sentences, or put the right word in the sentence, or give the right synonym for a word… We got the test back today. Of course the teacher did some scare tactics and said almost everyone needs to work harder and that you should really have at least 70% right. Of course I didn’t study as hard as I usually do. (There was only 25 points and it was only 2 pages, so not that long.)

And then I got the test back and saw that I got a 90%, or 22 1/2 points out of 25 right. Considering I really didn’t study, I’ll take it of course!

Here are a few things I missed:

De brief waar we op hadden gewacht kwam veel te laat. (I had ‘die’, but forgot the rule where ‘die’ changes into ‘waar’ when there’s also a preposition involved. i.e. ‘op’).

Nadat we het ongeluk hadden gehad, hebben we een auto gekocht. (I left out ‘gehad’ completely, thinking I could mix the past tense of ‘hadden’ with the perfect tense of ‘hebben gekocht’. Sometimes you can, I found out. But not always…)

And here are some rules for het that we learned, although we might have already had it previously.

1. All diminutives are het words. (het hondje, het meisje – the dog, the girl)

2. All words that are exactly two syllables and start with one of these prefixes:

be – het begin, het bedrag (the beginning, the amount [i.e. the amount to pay])

ge – het geheim, het gezin (the secret, the family)

ver – het vervoer, het verkeer (the transportation, the traffic)

ont – het ontbijt, het ontslag (the breakfast, the termination [i.e. firing someone])

3. All words that end up -isme. het communisme, het kapitalisme (communism, capitalism)

4. All words that end up -ment. het argument, het monument, het parliment…. no translations needed, right?

5. All words that end up -tuig. het vliegtuig, het voertuig. (the airplane, the vehicle [i.e. anything with wheels])

The last few classes we have talked about Er. It’s an adverb. In Dutch it has five different functions. It’s also a very, very annoying subject for buitenlanders to understand (myself included).

Function 1:

1. Er + telwoord (numeral, etc). Things to know with this form include:

a) it usually answers a question (if it is not you might be better off with function three)

b) some examples of telwoorden are: normal numbers (een, twee), but also words that describe an amount like weinig (not much), veel (a lot), geen (none), een paar (a few), een aantaal (a number).

c) er comes directly after the verb.

Heb je nog sigaretten? Do you still have cigarettes?

Ja, ik heb er nog twee. Yes, I have two.

Nee, ik heb er geen. No, I don’t have any.

Function 2:

Referring to a place. Er is the unstressed form of daar. Either might be used. Again, er/daar comes after the verb.

Ben je ooit naar Duitsland geweest? Have you ever been to Germany?

Ja, ik ben daar een paar keer geweest. Yes, I have been there a few times.

Function 3:

Er with an indefinite subject (There is a pen on the table, versus THE pen). Some things to know:

a) Er begins the sentence in a main clause. The indefinite subject comes after the verb.

b) You either use een (English = a) or nothing at all before the indefinite subject. Er loopt een man op straat. Er lopen mensen op straat. (A man walks in the street, people walk in the street – it is not always a clean translation)

Er staat een rode auto voor de deur. There is (literally: stands) a red car before the door.

Function 4 (B1-B2 level):

Here you have Er or the stressed form daar with a preposition. Sub function: Er pointing to a relative clause (i.e. a part of a sentence which cannot stand on its own like a main clause can).

a) For the first form, er usually combines with the preposition in some way. Usually as one word.

b) For the sub function, it’s harder to predict where er will be in this function. I think it is again right after the verb but I am not 100% sure.

Denk je aan de vakantie? (aandenken, to think of)

Ja, ik denk eraan. (Yes, I think about it.)

Function 2 – sentence without Er first: Ik ben trots op mijn kinderen. (I am proud of my kids, trots op zijn). Sentence with Er: Ik ben er trots op dat mijn kinderen op school goede resultaten halen. Er refers to ‘that my kids get good grades at school’, a relative clause. It is not easy to master this function!

Function 5 (B1-B2 level):

The last use of Er is in a passive sentence. Usually (if not always), Er begins the sentence and is followed by a conjugated version of worden or zijn.

Normal, active sentence: Ze praten in Nederlands veel over het weer. They talk in Dutch a lot about the weather. Passive version: Er wordt in Nederlands veel gepraat over het weer. There is a lot of talk in Dutch about the weather.