Author Archives: dipdowel

Using “Er”

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Case 1. As an adverb: “there” (to refer to a place):

Hij heeft er vijf jaar gewoond. — He lived there for five years.

Er is used only when in an unstressed position. When it should be under stress, daar is used instead:

Daar heeft hij vijf jaar gewoond.

Case 2. As a pronoun: het, hem and ze, when used to refer to things, cannot be used after prepositions. The following construction is used instead: er + preposition:

De kinderen spelen vaak ermee. — The children often play with it.
Hij heeft een half uur erop gewacht. — He has waited for it for half an hour.

er and preposition may get separated by some other words. For example:

De kinderen spelen er vaak mee.
Ik heb er een half uur op gewacht.

In this case er can be replaced by hier and daar, meaning “this” and “that” respectively.
Er is replaced with waar when asking a question.

Here’s the summary by example:
De kinderen spelen vaak ermee. — The children often play with it.
De kinderen spelen er vaak mee. — The children often play with it.
De kinderen spelen hier vaak mee. — The children often play with this.
De kinderen spelen daar vaak mee. — The children often play with that.
Waar spelen de kinderen mee? — What are the children playing with?

Case 3. Talking about quantity or amount: in this case it means “of it” or “of them”.

— Hoeveel kaarten heb je?  — How many tickets do you have?
— Ik heb er drie. — I have three (of them)

Ik heb er genoeg gehad. — I’ve had enough (of it/them).

“Ik heb er drie” — is the only right way to say this. Er should always present in such an expression!

Ik heb er genoeg gehad. — I’ve had enough (of it/them).

Case 4. To express the “there is” / “there are” construction (a sentence with an indefinite subject):
Er staat een man op straat. — There’s a man standing in the street.
Vanmorgen was er geen melk in de koelkast. — There was no milk in the fridge in the morning.

Invert er and the verb to form a question:
Is er geen melk in de koelkast? — Is there no milk in the fridge?

Wees de eerste van je vrienden die dit leuk vindt.

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Working full-time and mastering two languages at the same time takes a lot of energy. For that reason I’ve been having my Dutch learning on hold recently. I hope to come back really soon and go on with my posts here.

To prevent the lingual degeneration I switched my facebook’s interface language to Dutch.
It turned out to be surprisingly comfortable. I’ve already learnt a few new words like “toevoegen”, “sturen”, “versturen” and others.

“Bestanden toevoegen”, “Foto’s toevoegen”, “Druk op Enter om het bericht te versturen”, “Wees de eerste van je vrienden die dit leuk vindt.” “2 evenementen deze week”, “Nieuwsoverzicht” and there is much much more to keep me entertained Dutch-wise at facebook usage.

“…ongeveer een uur geleden”

“Verzonden vanaf een mobiele telefoon”

Tot ziens!

Past tense

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Weak verbs

Past tense of the weak verbs should be formed in the following way:
verb stem + te(n)/de(n)

The stems ending in p, t, k, s, f, ch add -te(n) (see the “pocket fish” rule),
all the rest add -de(n).

te(n): hopen:
ik hoopte
jij hoopte
u hoopte
hij hoopte
wij hoopten
jullie hoopten
u hoopte
zij hoopten

de(n): betalen:
ik betaalde
jij betaalde
u betaalde
hij betaalde
wij betaalden
jullie betaalden
u betaalde
zij betaalden

If a stem ends in -t or -d, it remains in the past tense form when -te/de is added:
1. praten – praat(stem) – praatte(sing.) – praatten(pl.)
2. redden – red(stem) – redde(sing.) – redden(pl.)

Pronouncuation: though the spelling is different, these three are pronounced almost identically: praten, praatte, praatten

Infinitives with v and z which turn into -f and -s when stems are formed, have f and s in the past tense as well, however they should be still pronounced like v and z:

1. leven – leef(stem) – leefde(sing.) – leefden(pl.)
2. verhuizen – verhuis(stem) – verhuisde(sing.) – verhuisden(pl.)

Separable verbs behave in the same way in the past as in present.
Verb and prefix are separate in a main clause and joined in a subclause:
Hij belde gisteren op. – He called yesterday.
Hij zei dat zij gisteren opbelde. – He said that she called yesterday.

Strong verbs

1. In singular the strong verbs change a vowel in the stem and do not add any additional endings.
2. In plural -en is added and the consonant before -en is changed if needed
(f→v, s→z, etc).

zingen: zong, zongen
schrijven: schreef, schreven (f→v)
dragen: droeg, droegen
hangen: hing, hingen
slapen: sliep, sliepen
lezen: las, lazen (s→z)

The past tense form of the strong verbs should be learnt by heart as the change of the vowel cannot be predicted.

Irregular verbs

The past tense forms of the irregular verbs should be learnt by heart.
Examples:
brengen: bracht, brachten
doen: deed, deden
kopen: kocht, kochten

Modal verbs

moeten: moest, moesten
kunnen: kon, konden
mogen: mocht, mochten
willen: wou/wilde, wilden

Here’s a list of some of the strong and irregular verbs and their past tense and part participle forms.

Hebben en zijn

hebben
ik had
jij had
u had
hij had
wij hadden
jullie hadden
u had
zij hadden

zijn
ik was
jij was
u was
hij was
wij waren
jullie waren
u was
zij waren

Usage of past tense

The past tense is not used as often in Dutch as in English.

1. It’s used when narrating a series of events:
Ik ging de stad in, kocht een cd, ging op een terrasje zitten, en daarna liep ik naar huis.
I went into town, bought a CD, went to seat on a terrace and after than I walked home.

2. It’s always used after subordinating conjunction toen:
Toen ik in Amsterdam woonde, ging ik vaak naar het theater.
When I lived in Amsterdam, I often went to the theater.

3. hebben and zijn are used more often in the past tense than in the perfect, however the perfect is not wrong in most cases:

Ik was in de stad. I was in the town.
Ik ben in de stad geweest. I was in the town.

4. The past tense must be used if hebben and zijn indicate a permanent state.

Hij is voor zijn examen geslaagd, maar hij was ook altijd knapper dan ik.
He passed his exam, but he always was cleverer than me.

Dutch -baar for English -able

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Suffix -baar (“-able”)  is used to derive adjectives from the transitive verbs:

drinkbaar – drinkable (verb: drinken)
haalbaar – feasible, doable (verb: halen – to pull, to drag)
afbreekbaar – decomposable (verb: afbreken – to decompose)
denkbaar  – imaginable (“thinkable”) (verb: denken)
blijkbaar – 1. evident, obvious 2. apparently, obviously (verb: blijken – to prove, to turn out)