Home
Site Map Mobile |
Learning Dutch?
Now is The Time Program 3 |
Pronunciation
Listening Hear Names |
Words | Phrases | Grammar |
my site |
Cognates and Change
On my old Cognates
page you can see and hear how English, Dutch and German words from the
same root developed. Do note the comments to the right of the words.
'Recognizable' Words and Pronunciation
My 'Easy Dutch' pages have Dutch words that are 'recognizable' from
English. The first page is organized around
pronunciation, how the words changed in Dutch and in English, and the
second page is organized by subject
(numbers, colors, body parts, animals etc.)
These 'Easy Dutch' words also show differences between Dutch and English
pronunciation. As a native speaker of English or if you know English
well, you will tend to pronounce words that look familiar in the
English way, but that is often not the right way for Dutch.
Listen closely to how I say the words and compare with the English pronunciation
- it will quickly show the differences and can help you quickly
understand the pronunciation of Dutch.
Dutch spelling is fairly phonetic and has clear rules:
learn the rules or
find out the rules by yourself
Someday you might want to look at
Exceptions to Phonetic Spelling
- 2
Dutch Sounds not Found in English
The one-page Dutch summary
has a chapter
Dutch Sounds not Found in English
Sounds Represented by Different Letters
and next a chapter
Dutch Sounds Represented by
Different Letters in English
B and D at the End of Words
B at the end of words is
pronounced as P
(de) krab
2
3
('crab') /
krabben
('crabs' // 'to scratch')
and D at the end of word is
pronounced as T
(het) bed
2
('bed') /
bedden
('beds')
The F/V and S/Z shift
English has 'wife/wives' and 'loaf/loaves,' Dutch has
raaf / raven
'raven' (a bird) / 'ravens' and
golf / golven
'wave' / 'waves' - but Dutch also has
huis / huizen
'house' / 'houses' and
vaas / vazen
'vase' / 'vases.' Most Dutch 'root' words ending in a long vowel and F or S
shift to V or Z in the plural or conjugated and declined
forms - more
False Friends
Sometimes not only the pronunciation but also the meaning of
words changed. For instance, Dutch smal
2
means 'narrow' and does not have te wider meaning of
English small and there are many other words from
different sources that look similar or identical but have a different
meaning: False Friends
There is a short version of 'False Friends' without extras,
and there is an
even shorter version
of identical or similar words
with about the same meaning and the False Friends.
The Article: 'The,' De and Het
Dutch has two definite articles 'the:'
de
2
and het
2
3
- often abbreviated to 't
(note the vowel change.)
Plurals always take de and
diminutives
(words ending in -JE) are het-words,
but there are few useful rules -
more
The indefinite article 'a' is
een
- phonetically more correctly written as
" 'n " - and
'one' is één
2
3
more numbers
Most Adjectives in Most Positions Get an -E Ending
Only adjectives for singular het-words after een, geen
or no article don't get an -E ending.
Adjectives already ending in single E or -EN don't get -E
endings - more
Numbers don't get -E endings (maybe numbers are not adjectives)
No Special Ending for Adverbs
Adverbs use the root form of the word, in Dutch there is not something like the
English -LY ending for adverbs
Comparative and Superlative degree
Dutch and English both have -ER and -ST endings for the comparative
and superlative degrees, and next to that the in Dutch less common
meer
('more') and
meest
('most')
‑>> -
more
Plurals are Different
Many Dutch nouns have a plural in -S, but there are also many Dutch
nouns with a plural in -EN. I can
only think of two English words with a plural
in -EN, though one of those,
'children' - Dutch kinderen
2
3
shows the common roots of the languages and there are a few more
similarities - plurals
Placeholders 'it,' 'that' and 'what'
‑>>
'It,' 'that' and 'what' as placeholders are usually translated as
'het,'
2
3
(or 't
)
- 'dat'
and 'wat'
- but when there's a preposition in
play, Dutch says 'er,'
'it,' -
'daar'
'that'
and 'waar'
'what'
Ik zie het
I see it ('it' - the thing mentioned before)
Ik denk er vaak aan
2
3
I often think of it
Verbs | |||||
zoeken to search, seek |
- | zocht sought |
- | gezocht sought |
![]() |
The Perfect Tenses and the Passive Voice
For the perfect tenses,
a small number of Dutch verbs use zijn
(otherwise translated as 'to be') as the
auxiliary verb instead of
hebben
('to have') ...
... while for the
passive voice Dutch uses the auxiliary verb
worden
2
- where English uses 'to be' - this can be complicated and
confusing, especially for native
speakers of English
Word Order
Differences in Word Order
In general, the word order in Dutch and English is similar,
but there are some differences, like:
Secondary Verbs at the End of the Sentence,
many Complications in the 'Subordinate Clause'
and Splitting Verbs
Writing for Dutch Characters
- Dutch people speaking English
Advanced
Pragmatic Markers, Modal Particles
- seemingly unnecessary, superfluous words
Modal Verbs -
short version
Prepositions - words often have more than one
meaning, which may not be shared by its translations
Frederick Roberts of Lincoln, England suggested the page
email -
Copyright © Marco Schuffelen 2023.
All rights reserved.
This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, redistributed,
or hotlinked to.
Gij zult niet stelen
'Thou shalt not steal'