Dutch Lesson 4

Regular  Verbs and Negation You’ve already worked your way through three chapters. Make sure you understood everything that appeared in those chapters. Make sure you understand the grammar and vocabulary and do make the exercises to practice. Also make sure you try to pronounce every Dutch sentence so you can practice your pronunciation.

Regular verbs

Let’s start now by learning a regular Dutch verb: “zeggen” (“to say” in English). In Dutch a regular verb in the present tense always has the same ending. That ending is underlined in the following example. The part of the verb that’s not underlined is called the stem, the part of the verb that always remains the same (although it might occur that the last consonant of the stem is repeated so the vowel before it retains the same sound. This is the case with this verb).

Ik zeg	I say
Jij zegt	You say also applies to the formal form “u”
Hij/Zij/Het zegt	He/She/It says
Wij zeggen	We say
Jullie zeggen	You say
Zij zeggen	They say

We’ll now discuss this conjugation somewhat more. The first person singular (“Ik”) is easy. It uses the full stem without any specific ending. The second person singular (“Jij”) gets an extra T behind the stem. So does the 3^rdperson singular (“Hij/Zij/Het”). Now all the plural forms have the same conjugation. Usually EN is added, except when the stem already ends in an E. Then only N is added. When the stem ends in a T it’s also unnecessary to add another T. But something strange can occur. The last consonant of the stem has to be repeated when it’s preceded by a vowel that would otherwise get a different sound. “zeg” is pronounced somewhat like “zech” (pronounce the ch like in the scottish word “loch”). And “zeggen” is pronounced like “zech-un”. When the last consonant wasn’t repeated it would say “zegen” and would be pronounced like “zai-chun”. So you see that’s you have to repeat the consonant in some occasions because the sound of the stressed vowel might change otherwise, and that never happens with regular verbs. Now a simpler verb: “kijken”, meaning “to look/to watch”.

Ik kijk	I watch
Jij kijkt	You watch
Hij/Zij/Het kijkt	He/She/It watches
Wij kijken	We watch
Jullie kijken	You watch
Zij kijken	They watch

Note that the infinitive verb (the unconjugated form, in English preceded by “to” as in “to see”) ends on EN in Dutch. Drop the EN and you have the stem of the verb. Then you can go conjugate it. You already know that the stressed vowel in a regular verb always has the same sound. This sound is copied from the infinitive verb. So besides adding an extra consonant there is also the matter of adding an extra vowel. Before you continue reading, make very sure you understand everything about the Dutch pronunciation. Let’s take a look at the verb “praten” (“to speak / to talk”) for example. The infinitive verb is pronounced as “pra-tun” (with the A pronounced differently than in English, with a long open sound). It has this special long sound because the A appears at the end of a syllable. When you would say “Ik prat” then that special sound would be lost because an “A” in the middle of a syllable has a very different sound. That’s why instead of “ik prat” they say “ik praat”, to retain the same sound as in the infinitive verb. Remember this! Note that in the 1^stperson plural (“wij”), it’s not needed to use this double vowel (double vowels never occur at the end of a syllable): “Wij praten”. The full conjugation of “praten” can be found below:

Ik praat	I speak
Jij praat	You speak
Hij/Zij/Het praat	He/she/it speaks
Wij praten	We speak
Jullie praten	You speak
Zij praten	They speak

There are actually three types of regular verbs (strong verbs and two types of weak verbs) but this only effects the past tense of the verb. The present tense is equal to all three types, so we won’t look into this matter now.

Negation

Now we’re going to talk about negation, because you might want to say: “That is NOT a house”, “and that is NO dog”. In Dutch there are two word for “no”: “geen” and “niet”. “geen” is used when talking about nouns. It’s a kind of adjective. “niet” is used with verbs. It’s a kind of adverb. For example, when denying quantity of a specific noun you use “geen”, as in “ik heb geen hond” (“I have no dog”). “niet” can be used to deny a verb. “Ik kijk niet” (“I am not looking”). It then appears after the verb and the direct object (at the end of the sentence). “geen” always appears directly after the verb and before the direct object. A little trick to remember whether to use “geen” or “niet”: “geen” applies to having “none” of something; “niet” can never be substituted by “none”. That’s enough material for now. Make sure you understand it. It’s quite hard, so don’t hesitate to reread this lesson a couple of times.

Vocabulary

Learn the following words. From now on there will also be regular verbs (or at least verbs that are regular in the present tense) in the list. ]]>