Posts Tagged With: Dutch language

Random: Trying to cross a four lane highway when the stoplights were not working properly (the main highway gets a flashing yellow light to be cautious, and the road I was on had a full red for you to come to a complete stop). It’s not that hard when you’re in a car, because you can move quickly… but when you’re on foot, it all but requires you sprint across. Which I eventually did, after finding a sufficient gap in traffic.

Nice: Reading page four/five of Het Geheim van de Verliefde Hulpkok with Marco during a videochat session. (I am on page 8 or so myself… need to get cracking to stay ahead.)

To do: Get back on track with the Dutchgrammar.com lessons. I have finished the other “Other Conjugations” section, and will soon be moving into the “Irregular Verbs” section. Oh boy!

Blog posts that I found interesting:

Ice cube coffee, by Trpana… Cool idea for a hot summer day (ice cubes made of coffee).

Dutch cats in Amsterdam, by Katriniella… That first cat definitely looks like he owns the place!

Here are some of the notes I took last night for the daily Dutch lesson. This page was talking about gerunds (verbs acting as nouns). In English this is generally verbs that act like nouns and end in –ing (the singing was horrible).

The “issue” with Dutch is they use the infinitive in this case (to sing), so it still looks like a verb. At least to me. 😉 But at least I know what to look for when I am trying to translate items.

Note taking at its finest…

The rest of the page is actually a summary of all verb types learned in that particular section. The thing that I remember most about the imperative (commands) section is that the English phrase “Let’s” (Let us…) is actually “Let we…” in Dutch. Laten we zingen. Let’s sing. (Rather than Laten ons zingen).

I generally transcribe most of what dutchgrammar.com says for each section; I don’t leave out much. That is because I tend to learn best by writing it out myself, rather than constantly referring back to the original source. But each person is different!

Over at dutchgrammar.com, the latest two sections that I have studied include using passive voice and the imperative commands (geef me chocolade! nu!).

I just know the passive is going to be trouble in Dutch. Particularly because the Dutch use zijn (to be) for the construction of the perfect tenses – i.e.

My hair has been washed = Mijn haar is gewassen.

My hair had been washed = Mijn haar was gewassen.

So the perfect tense uses is/was… which is normally the present tense in English. Uh boy. I can just see me mixing that one up. But everything I learn just makes it easier to figure out things, so I am usually happy to find out some weird quirk like that.

On a random note, one Dutch sentence Marco gave me today had the word sowieso (regardless) in it. I forgot about that word, but I love how it sounds. so-we-so.

I think it is time for me to go crash… not enough sleep last night. Figures!

Number of days (straight) I have studied Dutch: 1.

Ha! Back to “1” from 0. Technically I guess it could be a 2, because I did stare at some things yesterday, but I didn’t get anywhere fast and gave up pretty quickly (wasn’t feeling that well). I had planned to try to make some digital flashcards to review all of the verb tenses that I have learned (see below for the summary) but ended up nixing that idea for now.

Today I looked at two sections at dutchgrammar.com.

1.) Summary of the 8 ‘basic’ Dutch tenses: present tense, past tense, present perfect, pluperfect [past perfect!], future, conditional, future perfect, and conditional perfect.

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I’ve decided that pluperfect is a very interesting English word. English might have been my major in college, but even I admit it’s hard to remember what the pluperfect tense does exactly. I don’t recommend going to Wikipedia, since the language pages tend to be a bit too much.

So I looked up some other random websites and determined that it is an action which occurred before a point in the past. I had already gone outside when he came home. I think this tense would be a lot easier to remember if it was always called ‘past perfect’ rather than ‘pluperfect’ – you see it mentioned both ways.

For the Dutch version I looked at Dutchgrammar. It didn’t seem that different after all – you also use the pluperfect in Dutch when you want to refer to an event that occurred before another past event. Most verbs use the past tense of hebben (to have) with the verb’s past participle. – ik had gewerkt. I had worked. Occasionally you use zijn (to be) instead – ik was gevallen – I had fallen.

Final verdict: Think of it as ‘past perfect’ rather than ‘pluperfect’.

The pluperfect was last night. Tonight was the (simple) future. As this tense doesn’t need participles, it already seemed easier! There are generally two verbs which are used – zullen (i.e. ik zal or I shall) and gaan (to go). Generally if you are promising something, or you give the probability something will happen, or you use it within an if-then conditional…

If you give a mouse a cookie, then he will want a glass of milk. If you give a mouse a glass of milk… Als je een muis een koekje geeft, wil hij ook een glas melk. (Google says this might be a Dutch proverb?) Regardless, one of my favorite if-then books.

…then you use zullen. Otherwise, if you’re not promising anything, or giving a specific frame of reference when it will happen (today, tomorrow, next month), or you aren’t using an if/then startement, you can use gaan (to go – so ‘I am going to go to the club’).

Verdict: Makes sense to me. Now let’s see if it sticks . . .

There’s more mentioned at the Dutchgrammar pages, but I’ll leave that for you to find!