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!