Archive for 'Dutch Grammar'
Inversie – Inversion in Dutch Posted by Sten on Aug 20, 2014
Inversie is used frequently in the Dutch language, and in many situations. What is inversie? Inversie, or inversion in English, means that you switch the verb and the subject in a sentence. For example: hij geeft hem een appel becomes hem geeft hij een appel, or hij kan heel goed praten met mij becomes praten kan hij heel goed met mij. Even though this may be tough, it…
The Best of Transparent Dutch: Grammar Posted by tiffany on Jun 29, 2013
Dutch grammar can be difficult to master, but over the years, the Transparent Language Dutch blog has collected a number of excellent posts that make the task of learning Dutch grammar not only a snap, but a heck of a lot of fun too. Here’s a master list of our top grammar posts that’ll have…
I’m just making a goat and other stupid mistakes I’ve made in Dutch Posted by tiffany on Jun 5, 2013
Every Monday morning, my husband gathers with his colleagues for their weekly office meeting. And every Monday morning, just before the meeting officially begins, they have what I like to call the “Stupid things Tiffany said this week” briefing. This is when my husband lists all the notable flub-ups I’ve made in Dutch since the…
More on why some words get a double consonant in the plural form while others don’t Posted by tiffany on Apr 19, 2013
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…
Why do some words get a double consonant in the plural form and not others? Posted by tiffany on Apr 15, 2013
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…
10 Tips for Learning Dutch Posted by heather on Dec 27, 2012
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…
Dutch Verb Boot Camp: The Simple Past Tense (Part 1) Posted by heather on Jul 5, 2012
We have already talked about the present tense in Dutch, so let’s move on to the past tense. Today we will investigate weak verbs. In the past tense, we deal with verbs differently based on if they are a weak verb or a strong verb. weak verbs have letters added to make the change strong…