Introduction
Welkom!
Dutch is a Germanic language, with grammar and vocabulary similar to other European languages. You might recognize some words from English as well! Even so, Dutch is a language with grammatical genders.
Gender and Articles
In Dutch, there are three (grammatical) genders: masculine, feminine, and neuter. Each gender has their own definite article the.
Both singular masculine and feminine nouns use de , and singular neuter nouns use het.
For plural nouns, de is always used. The definite articles de and het don't have very clear rules for when you're supposed to use which; this will mostly be learning by heart and developing a feeling for it. However, there are some guidelines to help you along:
De words:
de melk
de krant(newspaper)
De is always used for plural nouns
De is always used for professions: de kok (‘the chef’), de leraar(‘the teacher’)
De tends to be used for people with an identified gender, such as:
m
f
m
f
de vader
de moeder
de man
de vrouw
het kind
de zoon
de dochter
de jongens
het meisjes
De is used for vegetables, fruits, trees and plants, names of mountains, and rivers. and
e.g. de appel
Furthermore, de is used for most words ending on -ie, -ij, -heid, -teit, -schap, -tie, -sie, -aar, -eur, -er, and -or.
Finally, de is used for written-out numbers and letters: de drie(‘the three’), de a (‘the a’).
Het words:
het water
het brood
het boek
het menu
Het is always used for diminutives. Diminutives can be recognised by their suffix; they end in -je, -tje, -etje, -pje, or -mpje.
Het meisje met de parel
the girl with the pearl earring
Het is always used for words consisting of two syllables and starting with be-, ge-, ver-, and ont-
Het is always used for verbs used as nouns. When the infinitive form of a verb is used as a noun
e.g. the walking of the dog(het lopen van de hond).
Het is always used for languages and names of metals
Het is also used for names of compass points: het noorden (‘the North’)
Het is used for names of sports and games: het schaken (‘chess’), het voetbal (‘football/soccer’)
Furthermore, het is used for words ending on -isme and -ment
Dutch speakers actually never tend to think about the gender of words. Rather than knowing whether a word is originally feminine or masculine, the only distinction that has to be remembered is the difference between the de words and het words.
This is because it has grammatical consequences (in terms of possessives, question words, demonstratives, adjectives, and even relative pronouns). This is why when you learn a new noun, it is very important to memorize whether it is a de or het word.
De jongen eet een appel.
The boy eats an apple.
Pronouns
The Dutch pronouns are as follows:
English
Dutch
I
Ik
You (singular)
Jij (Je*)
He/She/It
Hij/Zij (Ze*)/Het
You (formal)
U
We
Wij (We*)
You (plural)
Jullie
They
Zij (Ze*)
*Je, ze and we are un-emphasized forms of jij, zij and wij.
Verb conjugation
In Dutch, verbs can be recognised by the ending -en. For example, eten (‘to eat’) and drinken (‘to drink’). Verb conjugation in Dutch can get rather difficult, since there are lots of exceptions.
For the simple present, the conjugation is as follows:
Pronoun
Conjugation
Example
Ik
[stem]
Ik drink (I drink)
Jij
[stem]+t
Jij drinkt (You drink)
Hij/Zij/Het
[stem]+t
Hij drinkt (He drinks)
U
[stem]+t
U drinkt (You drink)
Wij
Infinitive
Wij drinken (We drink)
Jullie
Infinitive
Jullie drinken (You drink)
Zij
Infinitive
Zij drinken (They drink)
lees/lez(read)
spreek(speak)
I speak English.
Ik spreek Engels.
He speaks a bit of Dutch.
Hij spreekt een beetje Nederland.
Irregular verbs
Unfortunately, Dutch also has irregular verbs. Fortunately, there are only 6 verbs that are completely irregular.
These are the irregular verbs:
Hebben (to have)
Kunnen (can)
Mogen (may)
Willen (to want)
Zijn (to be)
Zullen (shall)
The most common of these are Hebben and Zijn, so here are their conjugations in the present tense:
Hebben
Zijn
Ik heb
Ik ben
Jij hebt
Jij bent
U hebt/U heeft
U bent
Hij/Zij/Het heeft
Hij/Zij/Het is
Wij hebben
Wij zijn
Jullie hebben
Jullie zijn
Zij hebben
Zij zijn
Negation
In Dutch, there are two words that are used to negate things: niet and geen. They are, however, not interchangeable. And since this is Dutch, there are some exceptions to this rule as well.
Geen
Geen is used to negate a noun that, if not negated, would be preceded by een. You can say that geen translates to ‘not a’. Geen is also used if the noun is not preceded by any article, like some plural and uncountable nouns.
Dutch
English
Is dat een man? – Nee, dat is geen man.
Is that a man? – No, that is not a man.
Hebben zij boeken? – Nee, zij hebben geen boeken.
Do they have books? – No, they don’t have books.
Note that geen can always be translated as the English word "no": That is no man. They have no books. For niet, this is almost never the case.
Niet
Niet is essentially used in all other situations:
To negate verbs, thoughts, adjectives, or any other sentence elements that aren’t nouns.
To negate nouns preceded by a definite article or possessive pronoun.
Dutch
English
Ik ren niet.
I do not run.
Hij is niet zo oud.
He is not that old.
Zij hebben de boeken niet.
They do not have the books.
De man heeft het menu niet.
The man does not have the menu.
As you can see in the last example, niet comes after the object, unlike geen. If it is used to negate an adjective or adverb, it comes directly before that word.
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