Dutch Grammar Numerous numerals

How we use the numerals is largely the same in all countries, but how we count is not. Both Dutch and English follow the decimal system with base ten, 'het tientallig stelsel met grondgetal tien'. We will see that the numerals = 'telwoorden' are quite similar, at least up to twenty: one two three four five six seven eight nine ten een twee drie vier vijf zes zeven acht negen tien eleven twelve thirteen fourteen fifteen sixteen seventeen eighteen nineteen ..

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Dutch Grammar The family and the article

Holland and Nederland Family life in Holland is as important as in the UK. Incidentally, do not speak of 'Holland' when you refer to 'Nederland', the country as a whole. Formally, 'Holland' refers to the provinces 'Noord-Holland' and 'Zuid-Holland' in the western part of the country. In some provinces you should not say that they belong to Holland. This is particularly sensitive in the province Friesland, where the people speak their own language, Frisian - but are also fluent in Dutch; 'De F ..

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False Friends in Dutch Language

When learning to understand a new language we always say to the learner; 'Look at the word or listen to the word and guess for the meaning'. Your calculated guess might be due to the fact that the word looks similar to the English word; ' wijn' (wine) ; 'Mijn' (=mine); 'kat' (=cat); 'dat' (= that); 'rugzak' (=rucksack) 'beter' (=better); 'zeven' (=seven) the word sounds the same; 'het boek' ; 'goed' ; 'de boot' (remember that [oo] in Dutch sounds like [oa]); 'koel' (=cool) the word looks t ..

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Grammar or no grammar?

The best way to learn to speak a new language is to listen to chunks of language and to repeat what you hear in order to make it your own. This is how you learn as a child. A child instinctively learns grammar. When making a past tense in English the child soon finds out that you add an [ed]-ending at the end of the word. "Today I play", "Yesterday I played" . "I cycle" becomes "I cycled", it is not strange that a lot of young children would say " Yesterday,I goed to the park". The child's paren ..

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Dutch Grammar Personal pronouns - to be and to have

Learning grammar with more or less comprehensive bits and pieces is tougher than going through more playful text. Well, good luck! One of the basic elements of conversation is speaking about yourself or to or about other persons while using 'to be', 'zijn' or to have, 'hebben'. This goes as follows: I am, haveyou arehe/she/it iswe areyou arethey areIk benjij/u benthij/zij/het iswij zijnjullie zijnzij zijnIk hebjij hebthij/zij/het/u heeftwij hebbenjullie hebbenzij hebben Most of these pro ..

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35 Reasons to love Amsterdam

Welcome to Amsterdam, one of the main cultural and historic centres of the World. The 'heroic', "steadfast', merciful' city with the three crosses, was founded in the 12th century. Nowadays rather the 'hospitable', 'social', 'merry' city. 1. City A fascinating city with a unique lay-out, with concentric semi-circular rings of canals, the 'grachtengordel', with roads and bridges running radially, built on millions of poles (wood, now concrete) drilled through a muddy peat layer down to the ..

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De poffertjeskraam - a typical Dutch delicacy

I was browsing through the vocabulary on this website when I came across the word "poffertje" which translated into "small pancake". They are small pancakes, but not every small pancake can be called "een poffertje". What is "een poffertje" and why have these "poffertjes" become so extremely popular among the Dutch? "Een poffertje" is a round tiny little pancake, about the size of a two pound coin. They are baked on big cast iron plates with dozens of half round little wells. "Poffertjes" ..

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Cheap and Expensive

Cheap and expensive in the shop Some goods are cheap, 'goedkoop' and some are expensive, 'duur'. If we go out shopping, 'als we boodschappen doen' do we usually carefully look at the price, 'kijken we nauwkeurig naar de prijs'. 'Boodschappen' in this sense are usually used in the plural ('in het meervoud'), while the standard meaning of 'boodschap' in the singular ('in het enkelvoud') is 'message'. An official of a lottery could phone you with the nice message that you have won an expensive c ..

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Dutch word geen

My blog post for today is about the pronunciation and use of the Dutch word "geen". I would like to start with the pronunciation part. The idea is that you do not look at this word with the English speaking part of your brain. Many of the double vowel sounds such as [ee],[aa] and [oo] in Dutch do not sound the same as in English. When you read a word with these letter combinations your natural instinct is to pronounce the word in your head in an English way. "bee", "knee" and "tree". Unfortunat ..

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Buying cheese ("kaas") at a market

Most Dutch villages and towns have a weekly or twice weekly outdoor market (="de markt"). When you say "I'm going to the market" a Dutch person says: "I go to the market". Dutch people usually don't bother with [-ing] words. When you say "I am going" or "I am buying" in English, the Dutch say "I go" or "I buy". In Dutch this is "ik ga" or "ik koop" (note [oo] is pronounced as [oa]). "I am going to the market" = "I go to the market" = "Ik ga naar de markt" "I am buying cheese at the market = ..

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Addressing persons in conversation and in letters

This blog post is about addressing people in Dutch, in letters and e-mails and in conversation. You are used to say you to everybody, but in the Middle Ages one used to say thou in a familiar context and ye more formally. In Dutch this distinction is still made. To family and friends as well as youngsters, say to around 20, you say "jij", or "je". To older people you don't know well you say "u". In former days children said "u" to their parents, but nowadays it is usually "je". The pronoun "u" w ..

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House and home in Dutch - thuis vs huis vs tehuis vs huiselijk

This blog post is about the Dutch words and Dutch phrases with the Dutch equivalents of "house" and "home". As between house and home, there are some differences between "huis" and "thuis", which are not the same as in English. Generally, house is "huis" and home is "thuis". Just one letter difference. huis, wonen Let us start with house, the building where you live, "het huis waar je woont". Of course one "lives" there as well: "wonen is leven in een huis". And such a house is your dwell ..

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How to be polite in Dutch

When you start learning to speak Dutch we encourage you to start with short simple sentences. "Ik ben Adam", "Ik heb een kat". "Ik wil koffie!" (=" I want coffee"). The first 2 sentences are absolutely fine to use but the third one sounds a bit demanding and might be perceived as impolite. In English you would make this sentence more polite by adding "would, may or could have" to your sentence. In Dutch however we make the sentence more polite by adding "graag" to the sentence. "graag" means "pl ..

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Nice in Dutch - lekker vs aardig vs mooi

In this blog post I will discuss the difficulties you may come across when you want to say that something or someone is nice in Dutch. If you look up the word "nice" in an English - Dutch dictionary you'll notice that there is a long big list of words which all mean nice, but which unfortunately cannot be used at random. In this blog I will try to help you how to decide which one to pick in which situation. I have chosen 3 of the most popular words you can use to say that something or someone is ..

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