Dutch Language Blog

Flickr Creative Commons/Newtown grafitti

Earlier this week, we tackled the question of why some words get a double consonant in the plural form while others don’t.

We talked about Dutch words that have the short vowel sound like bot (bone) and man (man) that need that double consonant in the plural form (botten and mannen) to maintain their short vowel sound so they don’t get confused with words like boot and maan (boat and moon) which have a long vowel sound, therefore getting only one consonant in the plural (boten and manen).

Short vowels

bot -> bone
plural: botten -> bones

man -> man
plural: mannen -> men

Long vowels:

boot -> boat
plural: boten -> boats

maan -> moon
plural: manen -> moons

Then, woord (word) came in for the surprise attack. Unlike in the examples above, the plural of woord is woorden, not worden (which means “to become”).

So, just why does woord get to break the rule?

Well, actually, it’s not breaking any rule. Instead, it’s following a slightly modified version of the one we learned on Monday.

Remember the reason for adding the double consonant to short vowel words like bot and man in the plural?

If you said “to indicate that the vowel is to remain short,” or something to that effect, you’re right! We add the extra consonant to keep the sort vowel short. When it’s a long vowel, no extra consonant is needed.

Now let’s go back to our friend woord. Because it has the double “o,” we know that it gets the long “o” sound. If you look closely at the tail end of the word woord, there are already two consonants – “rd” Since it’s already got two consonants, we don’t have to add another one. Nor do we need to take a vowel away like we had to do with boot and maan. We’re off the hook! Just add an “en” to the end and you’ve got woorden (words). Woorden maintains its long “o” sound without us having to do anything special. And everyone lives happily ever after.

So, let’s recap:

woord -> word
plural: woorden -> words
*worden means “to become”

Here are a few more examples to set the record straight:

paard -> horse
plural: paarden -> horses
*parden is not a word

moord -> murder
plural: moorden -> murders
*morden doesn’t exist

And there you have it! Everything you need to know about double vowels and double consonants in the plural form.

If you have any questions or any words you would like to add to our lists, please leave a comment in the space below.

Flickr Creative Commons/semarr

So here’s a question we were asked last week by a reader:

“Random question. Woman = vrouw; women = vrouwen. Why not vrouwwen (ie man -> mannen, etc)?”

Excellent question!

Here’s the deal…

As in English, vowels in Dutch can have both the long sound (been, maan) and short sound (ben, kat). In Dutch, the long vowel sound is denoted by doubling up on the vowel in question. For example, maan (moon) and been (leg) both get the long vowel sound as opposed to man (man) or bot (bone) which get the short vowel sound.

So, the short answer is, the double “n” in mannen keeps the “a” in the word man short. Without that second “n,” you’ve got manen, with a long “a” sound, which means moons.

For more on vowels, check out this past post on spelling Dutch words with long vowel sounds and this one on spelling Dutch words with short vowel sounds.

The word vrouw (woman) uses the “ou” vowel combination. Unlike “a” and “e,” which can take on the long or short vowel sound, “ou” always makes the same sound (ow). Because we only need that double consonant to keep the short vowels short when the word becomes plural, it’s not needed in words like vrouw. So all we need to do is add an “en” on the end to make it vrouwen (women)

Some others to watch out for:

Long vowels:

been -> leg
plural: benen -> legs
*bennen is not a word

teen -> toe
plural: tenen -> toes
*tennen is not a word

zoon -> son
plural: zonen -> sons
*zonnen means suns

boot -> boat
plural: boten -> boats
*botten means bones

Short vowels

bed -> bed
plural: bedden -> beds
*beden is the plural for plea/prayer that is no longer used

man -> man
plural: mannen -> men
*manen means moons

pit -> pit/stone
plural: pitten -> pits/stones
*piten is not a word

But here’s the thing. Every rule has exceptions and some rules have no rhyme or reason behind them. One such exception is woord (word). Woord has the long vowel sound so, based on the examples above, the plural (words) should be worden. However, worden means “to become” NOT “words.”

What is the Dutch word for “words” then? It’s woorden. More on why in another post.

For more, you can also go back to this post on Dutch plurals.

So, learn the rule, but be flexible. And take it easy on yourself. Learning a language is a challenge. Some things won’t make sense, others will simply drive you crazy. But just keep plugging along and you’ll get there. You can do this!

Is learning Dutch on your New Year's resolution list?

It is almost the start of a new year and for many people, learning a foreign language (or improving the one they are working on) will feature somewhere on the New Year’s resolution list.

If that foreign language is Dutch, here are ten mini-tips about the language to get you started.

1. Dutch nouns have a gender. They are either common or neuter. The article de goes with common nouns and het goes with neuter nouns. It is important that the article “the” (de or het) agrees with the noun that it is going with.

Example: de kip – het huis

2. The word for a/an is een.

3. The word een actually has two meanings – a/an or one. The pronunciation makes all the difference, which is why you will usually find the number version written this way: één

Example: een huis – één, twee, drie

4. Diminutives are often used in Dutch, expressing smallness, endearment or even contempt. To form a diminutive, you usually add –je or –tje to the end of the noun but –etje, -pje, and –kje can also be found.

Example: het meisje – het boompje

5. Diminutives are always neuter nouns.

6. There are three ways to form the plural of nouns:

• adding en
• Example: bloem/bloemen
• adding s
• Example: tafel/tafels
• adding eren
• Example: ei/eieren

7. When making words plural, there are often some spelling changes that occur.

Example: maan/manen – bel/bellen – huis/huizen

8. Demonstratives (this/that/these/those) depend on the gender of the noun.

9. Adjectives are placed before the noun.

Example: de kleine tuin – het kleine huis – een klein huis

10. You should learn this list of pronouns, these question words and the verb to be, as well as the verb to have.