Duolingo Grammar Guides
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Duolingo Grammar Guides Dutch Dutch Duolingo Grammar Guide Contents Basics 1..................................................................................................................................1 Basics 2..................................................................................................................................4 Common Phrases................................................................................................................7 Plurals....................................................................................................................................8 Possessives...........................................................................................................................9 Adjectives 1.........................................................................................................................12 Formal..................................................................................................................................15 Verbs: Present 1.................................................................................................................16 Object Pronouns...............................................................................................................18 Questions............................................................................................................................19 Conjunctions......................................................................................................................21 Date and Time....................................................................................................................23 Er vs. (T)here.......................................................................................................................24 Verbs: Present Continuous.............................................................................................26 Te + Infinitive Verbs..........................................................................................................27 Verbs: Imperative..............................................................................................................30 Verbs: Modal.......................................................................................................................31 Diminutive..........................................................................................................................32 Reflexive Verbs and Pronouns........................................................................................34 Verbs: Present Perfect......................................................................................................35 Passive Voice......................................................................................................................37 Verbs: Simple Past............................................................................................................40 Verbs: Passive Simple.......................................................................................................41 Verbs: Future Tense..........................................................................................................42 The Conditional Present and Perfect............................................................................44 Relative Pronouns.............................................................................................................46 Feelings...............................................................................................................................47 Verbs: Past Perfect............................................................................................................48 Also In The Series..............................................................................................................50 Basics 1 Welkom! Welcome to the Dutch course! Dutch is a Germanic language, with grammar and vocabulary similar to other European languages. You might recognize some words from English as well! Even so, Dutch is a language with grammatical genders. These genders have influence on endings on words, for example. Gender and Articles In Dutch, there are three (grammatical) genders: masculine, feminine, and neuter. Each gender has their own definite article (‘the’): both singular masculine and feminine nouns use de and singular neuter nouns use het. For plural nouns, de is always used. The definite articles de and het don't have very clear rules for when you're supposed to use which; this will mostly be learning by heart and developing a feeling for it. However, there are some guidelines to help you along: De words: 1. De is always used for plural nouns. 2. De is always used for professions: de kok (‘the chef’), de leraar (‘the teacher’). 3. De tends to be used for people with an identified gender, such as: de vader (‘the father’), de dochter (‘the daughter’). 4. De is used for vegetables, fruits, trees and plants, names of mountains, and rivers. 5. Furthermore, de is used for most words ending on -ie, -ij, -heid, -teit, - schap, -tie, -sie, -aar, -eur, -er, and -or. 6. Finally, de is used for written-out numbers and letters: de drie (‘the three’), de a (‘the a’). Het words: 1. Het is always used for diminutives. Diminutives can be recognised by their suffix; they end in -je, -tje, -etje, -pje, or -mpje. 2. Het is always used for words consisting of two syllables and starting with be-, ge-, ver-, and ont-. 3. Het is always used for verbs used as nouns. When the infinitive form of a verb is used as a noun (e.g. 'the walking of the dog'), Dutch uses het (het lopen van de hond). 1 4. Het is always used for languages and names of metals. 5. Het is also used for names of compass points: het noorden (‘the North’). 6. Het is used for names of sports and games: het schaken (‘chess’), het voetbal (‘football/soccer’). 7. Furthermore, het is used for words ending on -isme and –ment. Dutch speakers actually never tend to think about the gender of words. Rather than knowing whether a word is originally feminine or masculine, the only distinction that has to be remembered is the difference between the de words and het words. This is because it has grammatical consequences (in terms of possessives, question words, demonstratives, adjectives, and even relative pronouns). This is why when you learn a new noun, it is very important to memorize whether it is a de or het word. Pronouns The Dutch pronouns are as follows: *Je, ze and we are un-emphasized forms of jij, zij and wij. The difference will be taught in another skill. 2 Verb Conjugation In Dutch, verbs can be recognised by the ending -en. For example, eten (‘to eat’) and drinken (‘to drink’). Verb conjugation in Dutch can get rather difficult, since there are lots of exceptions (welcome to Dutch, where exceptions are the rule!). The most basic rule is: find the stem and add the right ending to it. To find the stem of the word, you take the infinitive of the word – the basic form that you can find in the dictionary – and take off the ending, i.e. -en. So in the example of 'drinken', (to drink), the stem would be drink-. For the simple present, the conjugation is as follows: Alphabet The Dutch alphabet has 26 letters – just like in English. In fact, you don’t have to learn any new letters! Hurrah! However, there are a lot of differences and peculiarities in pronunciation. Some letters are pronounced differently, and there can be combinations of letters that may throw you for a loop. Don’t worry, we are not discussing the letters just now. 3 Basics 2 Irregular Verbs In Basics 1 the regular verb conjugations have been explained. Unfortunately, Dutch also has irregular verbs. Fortunately, there are only 6 verbs that are completely irregular. There are more which aren't entirely regular, but you'll meet those in the Past tense. These are the irregular verbs: 1. Hebben (to have) 2. Kunnen (can) 3. Mogen (may) 4. Willen (to want) 5. Zijn (to be) 6. Zullen (shall) The most common of these are Hebben and Zijn, so here are their conjugations in the present tense: 4 Pronunciation The way Dutch vowels sound depends on whether they are in open or closed syllables. A syllable is closed if it is in a consonant sandwich (e.g. bed, ‘bed’) and it is open if it is not (e.g. ga, ‘go’). 5 6 Common Phrases Greetings Throughout The Day As in English, Dutch has many different ways of greeting others. The most common one, which you can use all day, is Hallo. An easy way of greeting people throughout the day, is to say the time of day and add goede- "good" in front of it - just like in English. If the time of day starts with a vowel, you squish an -n- in between (an exception being "goedendag"). As follows: 7 Plurals Plurals Dutch has four ways of making a plural, two of which are very rare. The most common way of making a plural is noun + en. The second most common way of making a plural is noun + s. The two rare ways are noun + eren, and plurals ending in -a. That last one is only used for words which come from Latin, and for all of these it's also correct to just pluralize it with -s. As with many things in Dutch grammar, the rules for when to use which aren't very clear. There are some guidelines, but the best way to learn them is by slowly developing a feeling for it. With that being said, there are a few things to keep in mind: Noun + En • Always maintain vowel length. If a vowel sounds long, make sure it keeps sounding long (for instance, schaap becomes schapen). If a vowel sounds short, keep it short