{"id":4149,"date":"2016-04-13T12:17:57","date_gmt":"2016-04-13T12:17:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/?p=4149"},"modified":"2016-04-12T17:18:26","modified_gmt":"2016-04-12T17:18:26","slug":"back-to-basics-incorrect-uses-of-als","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/back-to-basics-incorrect-uses-of-als\/","title":{"rendered":"Back to Basics: Incorrect uses of &#8220;als&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The word\u00a0<em>als<\/em> is a very\u00a0versatile Dutch word.\u00a0You can use it as a conjunction (<em>Als je klaar bent met studeren, kunnen wij ijs gaan eten)<\/em>\u00a0or a preposition (<em>Ik zeg dit als een Nederlands leerling<\/em>). This is perhaps one of the reasons why it is a word that can easily be used incorrectly. Here are just two instances of the incorrect use of\u00a0<em>als<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Als en Toen<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>I learned early on in my Dutch classes that\u00a0<em>wanneer<\/em> is a very Dutch-learner word. I would translate &#8220;when&#8221; literally and would say things like\u00a0<em>wanneer ik naar Nederland ga&#8230;\u00a0<\/em>Luckily, one of my Dutch teachers quickly corrected this and told me it was best to use\u00a0<em>als<\/em> for those sentences. After that,\u00a0<em>als<\/em> became my go-to word for everything!\u00a0<em>Als ik naar Nederland ga&#8230;Als het weer warm is&#8230;.Als&#8230;.Als&#8230;Als&#8230;<\/em><\/p>\n<p>And then I ran into another typical problem, I began using\u00a0<em>als<\/em> for things that had happened in the past. I simply made <em>als<\/em> the equivalent of &#8220;when&#8221; and went crazy with it.\u00a0This became my follow up Dutch learner mistake. Again, thanks to the hard work and good ear of my Dutch teachers, this problem was corrected and I was introduced to\u00a0<em>toen.\u00a0<\/em><em>Toen,<\/em> I was told, was the past version of &#8220;when.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>So&#8230;when you are speaking about the present and the future&#8230;.<em>Als je over het heden en de toekomst spreekt<\/em>&#8230;.use\u00a0<em>als.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Als ik klaar ben met deze blog, ga ik een koffie drinken.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Als wij goed Nederlands spreken, kunnen wij Duits leren.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>When you are speaking about the past&#8230;<em>toen jij over het verleden had gesproken&#8230;<\/em>use\u00a0<em>toen!<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Toen ik in Mexico was, heb ik elke week tacos gegeten.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Toen mij moeder in Amsterdam was, heeft zij het lekkerste ijs gehad!\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Als en Dan<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>Another common but incorrect use of\u00a0<em>als<\/em> is when you are comparing. When you are saying how two things are alike, it is perfectly correct to use\u00a0<em>als.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Nederland is even nat als Engeland.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>But when you are pointing out a difference, you must hold back from using\u00a0<em>als<\/em> because it is a Dutch rookie mistake. If you are talking about how two things are different, you must use\u00a0<em>dan\u00a0<\/em>instead.<\/p>\n<p><em>Nederland is kleiner dan Duitsland.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>I think the following song from\u00a0<em>Snapje\u00a0<\/em>explains this a lot better than I can.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Snapje? ft. Lucas Hamming - Groter dan | Het Klokhuis\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/r6-he3wHv_4?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><em>Snapje?<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The word\u00a0als is a very\u00a0versatile Dutch word.\u00a0You can use it as a conjunction (Als je klaar bent met studeren, kunnen wij ijs gaan eten)\u00a0or a preposition (Ik zeg dit als een Nederlands leerling). This is perhaps one of the reasons why it is a word that can easily be used incorrectly. Here are just two&hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"post-item__readmore\"><a class=\"btn btn--md\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/back-to-basics-incorrect-uses-of-als\/\">Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":120,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[3590],"tags":[406666,8201,4897,358731,406670,406671,8448,406667],"class_list":["post-4149","post","type-post","status-publish","hentry","category-dutch-language","tag-als","tag-comparisons","tag-dan","tag-dutch-language","tag-dutch-learners","tag-dutch-learning-mistakes","tag-mistakes","tag-toen"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4149","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/120"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4149"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4149\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4154,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4149\/revisions\/4154"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}