Dutch/Lesson 4

From Wikibooks, the open-content textbooks collection

Les 4 ~ Lesson 4

---

| ^ Contents ^ | << Les 3 | Les 4 | Les 5 >>

---

Contents 1 Gesprek 4-1 2 Grammatica 4-1 ~ The indefinite articles een en geen 2.1 Negation 3 Grammatica 4-2 ~ Possessive and demonstrative pronouns 3.1 Using demonstrative pronouns instead of personal pronouns 4 Grammatica 4-3 Plural of nouns 4.1 Vowel changes 4.2 The Dutch spelling rule 5 Woordenlijst 4

[edit] Gesprek 4-1

Peter is een student medicijnen. Hij gaat naar de universiteit. Hij wil Elly uitnodigen voor een etentje, maar hij heeft geen geld. Hij kan er niks aan doen; studeren is duur.

Pa, ik heb geld nodig!

Alweer?

Ja, sorry hoor, maar ik heb echt stoelen en een tafel nodig!

Ja, ja, tafels en stoelen zeker. Feesten zul je bedoelen.

He Pa, toe nou... Die heb ik echt nodig, hoor.

Nou, vooruit dan maar weer...

[edit] Grammatica 4-1 ~ The indefinite articles een en geen

...chairs and a table ... stoelen en een tafel

...has no money... heeft geen geld

In the previous lesson you were introduced to the definite articles—'the' in English and het or de in Dutch. Indefinite articles precede nouns in the same way that definite articles do, but convey a general or indefinite sense. These are 'a' or 'an' in English. Thus, 'the book' or het boek refers to a definite or specific book, whereas 'a book' or een boek is indefinite about which book is referred to. Indefinite articles only come in one form (een), so they don't display gender.

The use of definite and indefinite articles is virtually the same as in English. The few deviations are best learned when listening to the language or speaking it.

een	de	masculine/feminine	de tafel - een tafel (the table - a table)
een	het	neuter	het raam - een raam (the window - a window)

Please note (see also previous lesson) that the indefinite article has the same form as the numeral one (één). One could argue that one is a clitic form of the other. To denote the difference, one could place accents on the numeral. Also, there is a difference in pronunciation. The numeral één (one) is pronounced /e:n/, the article een (a) with a much weaker /ən/. Occasionally Dutch has one and English the other:

op een middag - one afternoon

Notice that one is used here in the meaning of a certain, not say in contrast to two or three.

There is an inflected form ene that is used independently:

Occasionally Dutch has one, English the other.

Soms heeft Nederlands het ene, Engels het andere

[edit] Negation

In English a negative of an indefinite article is simply formed by adding not:

this is a car

this is not a car

Alternatively one can drop the article and say:

this is no car.

In Dutch there is a special negative of een: geen.

dit is een auto

dit is geen auto.

The combination niet + een is only used in contrasting things:

dit is niet een fuut maar een eend.

this is not a grebe but a duck.

[edit] Grammatica 4-2 ~ Possessive and demonstrative pronouns

Recall the following from Gesprek 3-1:

Ja. En daarna breng je me op je motor naar huis.

Which translates as:

'Yes. And after that take me home on your motorcycle'.

The sentence demonstrates one of the possessive pronouns. These are (singular) 'my', 'your', and 'his/her/its' in English and mijn, jouw or je, and zijn/haar/(zijn) in Dutch.

The pronoun je is a weak form of jouw and it is used when the emphasis is on something else, such as the motorcycle in this case.

Dutch does not have a possessive case as English does. In English one could say this house of mine, where mine (and yours, hers, his, ours, yours, theirs) is possessive case. Dutch uses objective case for this: dit huis van mij as if 'van' (of) is a preposition.

See Dutch/Appendix 3 for a table of the possessive pronouns.

In English, this is used as demonstrative pronoun to indicate something in proximity. That indicates greater distance. In Dutch a similar distinction exists, but gender plays a role:

de trein → deze trein - this train

het huis → dit huis - this house

So, one replaces 'de' by deze and 'het' by dit.

At a greater distance:

de trein → die trein

het huis → dat huis

Notice that often when English has th, Dutch will have d:

the - de

that - dat

think - denk

A third, even more distant pronoun exists (gene, gindse), but it is about as common as its English equivalent yon, yonder.

Again, the two languages betray their kinship. In some words, a g in Dutch corresponds to a y in English.. Compare:

gisteren - yesterday

de gist - the yeast

geel - yellow

[edit] Using demonstrative pronouns instead of personal pronouns

Recall:

Die heb ik echt nodig, hoor!

As we have seen Dutch is on its way to a two-gender system. This makes demonstrative pronouns a more attractive choice to refer things by than personal pronouns. Compare:

		close	far	def.	indef.
gender	personal	demonstrative		article
masculine	hij	deze	die	de	een
feminine	zij	deze	die	de	een
neuter	het	dit	dat	het	een
(plural)	zij	deze	die	de	--

As you see demonstratives do not distinguish whether a word is feminine or masculine and follow the same common-neuter pattern as the articles. Compare:

Ik zie Jan. Hij is sterk - I see John. He is strong.

Ik zie zijn auto. Die is duur. - I see his car. It is expensive.

Note: because de auto is not neuter, it is not correct to say: Het is duur. But saying hij is duur or zij is duur makes the word specifically masculine or feminine. Using die avoids the issue, because die follows the common gender pattern of the definite article.

Increasingly, personal pronouns are reserved for reference to persons (natural gender as in English). To refer to things people resort to substituting the demonstratives.

[edit] Grammatica 4-3 Plural of nouns

As seen above the plural definite article is always de (for all genders), there is no indefinite article and the demonstratives are deze and die and the personal pronoun is zij or its weak form ze. Forming the plural of the noun itself is a bit more complicated.

Recall: ...tafels en stoelen...

With few exceptions like ox - oxen pretty much all words simply get an -s in English. Dutch however has two main ways to form a plural: by adding -s and by adding -en. The latter is pronounced /-ən/, /-ə/ or even as a syllabic /-n/ depending on the region.

Which plural applies is best learned case by case as gender is, although we can attempt a general rule:

All words of more than one syllable that end in -el, -em, -en, -er, -a, -e, -i, -o, -u and -y get -s, all others get -en.

The ones in -a, -o, -i and -y get an apostrophe before the -s

baby - baby's

Unfortunately there are lots of exceptions. Many recent (latinate) loans from English or French and all diminutives get a -s.

de tafel - de tafels

de familie - de families

het meisje - de meisjes

Words in -te and -laar usually get -s:

de hoogte - de hoogtes

de kandelaar - de kandelaars

Amongst the many words that get -en are the ones in -ing:

de helling - de hellingen

[edit] Vowel changes

Most monosyllabic words have -en in the plural:

de stoel - de stoelen

het raam - de ramen

In the latter case, notice that one of the a's is dropped in the spelling of the plural. This difficulty is related to the fact that most Dutch vowels occur in two varieties, a closed one and an open one. Dutch spelling has a rather ingenious and systematic way of denoting which one is intended. It involves the doubling of either vowels or consonants. Compare:

het bot /bɔt/ (the bone) has an open vowel /ɔ/ like British pot (or American paw)

de boot /bot/ (the boat) sounds much like British boat.

In this case the vowels remain the same in the plural, but notice the doubling:

het bot - de botten /'bɔtə(n)/ (bot-ten)

de boot - de boten /'botə(n)/ (bo-ten)

listen (help·info)

It is customary to call the first sound /ɔ/ a 'short o' and the second /o/ a 'long o', but this terminology can be rather confusing. There are languages like Czech where vowels are indeed distinguished purely on their length. In Dutch, however, the difference in length (quantity) is actually pretty negligible, but the difference in vowel sound (quality) is not. This presents a problem for speakers of the many languages with a five-vowel system, like Italian, Russian, Arabic or isiXhosa whose ears are not accustomed to this kind of difference. Anglophones usually do quite well.

[edit] The Dutch spelling rule

The Dutch Spelling Rule is:

an 'open' syllable that ends in a vowel such as bo- sounds like boat /o/,

a 'closed' one bot- like pot (/ɔ/).

If the opposite is desired, either the vowel is doubled (→ boot) or the consonant (botten).

For non-native speakers a complication arises in those cases where the actual vowel changes ('lengthens') in the plural, compare:

dat pad (/pɑt/) - die paden (/'padən/ - vowel changes) (that path - those paths)

die pad (/pɑt/) - die padden (/'pɑdən/ - no vowel change) (that toad - those toads)

listen (help·info)

The vowel /ɑ/ in pad and padden is approximately as in father. Paden has a vowel /a/ like in broad American 'Oh, my God' (In Dutch the spelling would be: Gaad). Also, notice the gender difference of the two words.

This change is systematic in in the plural of the past of many strong verbs (see 6).

ik zat (/zɑt/) - wij zaten (/zatən/) (I sat - we sat)

A few words show vowel changes other than between the open and closed variety of the same vowel:

de stad - de steden (city).

Words ending in -heid get -heden:

beleefdheid - beleefdheden

There is about a dozen plurals in Dutch that end in -eren:

het kind - de kinderen (child - children)

het lam - de lammeren (lamb)

The ending -eren is essentially a double plural. It derives from a plural in -er and in some compounds that is still visible:

de kinderkamer - the children's room

de lammergier - a species of vulture

Some words in -ie have an -en plural that requires a diaeresis (trema in Dutch). The orthography depends on where the stress falls:

de kolonie - de koloniën

de dynastie - de dynastieën

A trema is also used after -ee:

de zee - de zeeën

de diatomee - de diatomeeën

Occasionally a Latin or Greek plural is preserved in Dutch:

het museum - de musea

de chemicus - de chemici

[edit] Woordenlijst 4

de tafel                    table
de stoel                    chair
het geld                    money
de student                  student (university)
de universiteit             university
het medicijn                the medication, the drug

kan er niks aan doen        cannot help it
nodig                       necessary
Ik heb nodig                I need

bezoeken                    attend (as a student)
verkopen                    sell

wat                         some
niks                        nothing
nog                         still
duur                        expensive
weer                        again
vooruit                     ahead, 'let's go'
te weinig                   too little

Pronunciation Guide>>

• Advanced Lesson 4>>