Archive for 'Dutch Grammar'
The Pain of Separable Verbs Posted by Karoly Molina on Jan 27, 2016
This morning I had a very “girly” problem related to Dutch. I was getting a manicure and I wanted to explain to the manicurist that I wasn’t able to completely remove the gel nail polish and needed her to help me. The problem was….which verb do you use for removing nail polish. In my head…
Back to Basics: Using the Present Tense Posted by Karoly Molina on Aug 12, 2015
I know most of you are thinking…why do we need to go back to the basics with the present tense? This is perhaps the first grammar lesson we get in Dutch classes, and, to be honest, one of the easiest rules. So why am I going to devote a post to the present tense? I’ve…
I must confess…I am a yogi! Posted by Karoly Molina on May 20, 2015
I wrote recently about working out and I have a confession to make: I am a yogi! I do not mean yogi in that I can fold myself like an origami figure, I just simply LOVE doing yoga! It all started about three years ago when my mom talked me into going with her to yoga. I…
Why We Do What We Do Posted by Karoly Molina on Mar 24, 2015
Part of communicating is explaining why we do something. This “why” could refer to our motivation, to explain more or be more specific, or even something as simple as to the function of things. In Dutch, this can be explained with the words om + te + _______ (infinitief). If I want to explain why I…
Lets not be so simple…with our sentences! Posted by Karoly Molina on Mar 5, 2015
When learning a language, we can sometimes be our worst enemies. We strive for perfection and yet miss a homework assignment or two (or gasp! class), we want to talk about more than the weather and colors but we don’t learn new words. For adults, our enemy is sometimes our intelligence. I don’t mean to…
Do I use “de” or do I use “het”? Posted by Karoly Molina on Jan 13, 2015
Something I’ve struggled with in Dutch is distinguishing when a noun (person, place thing) uses de or het. I remember going over that while I was still living in Mexico, and although I know some of the rules, I cannot say I really KNOW them. Perhaps some of you already have this de or het dilemma out of the way, but…
5W Questions Posted by Karoly Molina on Aug 25, 2014
Asking a question is an important part of communicating. Questions are the means to how we get more information and help us understand our surroundings. This is why learning how to phrase questions in our target language is very important. We can ask for directions, for clarification, for explanation and for reasons. In the U.S…