Lesson 5

Listen to Dutch - Colors - Adjectives and Adverbs - Numbers 20-100 (#2) - The Catholic Minority in Holland

Witte zwanen, zwarte zwanen		White swans, black swans		zwart-wit foto - (de) zwaan
Wie gaat er mee naar England varen?		Who's going to sail with me to England?
Engeland is gesloten		England is closed
De sleutel is gebroken		The key is broken
En er is geen smid in 't land		And there is no blacksmith [to be found] in the land
Die die sleutel maken kan		Who can repair that key
Naar voren, naar voren		Come forward, come forward
Wie achter is moet voren		Those at the back should come to the front

						>> clothing
rood	oranje	geel	groen	blauw	paars
zwart	wit	bruin	grijs	roze*

Adjectives and Adverbs

de sinaasappels zijn oranje - de oranje sinaasappels de huid is roze - de roze huid Adjectives describe nouns: The big man. Adverbs describe verbs: He spoke loudly.

de hemel is blauw - de blauwe hemel de lucht is blauw - de blauwe lucht - 2 de appel is groen - de groene appel - 2 Adjectives almost always get an -E ending. Not in the first two examples, because there the root words already ended in -E (oranje, roze.)

de tomaten zijn rood - de rode tomaten melk is wit - de witte melk The pronunciation of the vowel in adjectives rarely changes, but adding an -E may change the spelling of the word: groen / groene - wit / witte - rood / rode Read more about Dutch spelling below.

• if there is only one consonant between vowels, that consonant goes to the second syllable
  (manen: ma-nen)
  The first syllable is 'open,' meaning it ends in a vowel, and that vowel will be 'long,' even if it is written as a single vowel (except E at the end of a word, which is 'voiceless.')
• if there is more than one consonant, the break will be between the consonants
  (mannen: man-nen; kasten: kas-ten)
  The first syllable is 'closed,' meaning it ends in a consonant, and if there is only a single vowel before that consonant, it will be 'short.' A long vowel in a closed syllable has to be written as a double vowel.

So, adding an -E (or -EN, -ER etc.) ending to a word that ended in a vowel followed by a single consonant would change the last syllable of the original word from 'closed' to 'open.' The vowel sound rarely changes, so the spelling of the word will change:

• If at the end of the word there was a single vowel followed by a single consonant, that consonant will double, to keep the last syllable of the original word 'closed' and the vowel 'short:'
  wit / witte (wit-te)
• If at the end of the word there was a double vowel followed by a single consonant, that vowel will now be written as a single vowel, because the removal of the consonant has changed the syllable from 'closed to 'open:'
  rood / rode (ro-de)
  geel / gele - 2 (ge-le)
• Diphthongs (AU/OU, EI/IJ, EU, OE and UI) are always long, and adding -E endings causes no spelling changes around them:
  groen / groene (groe-ne)
  bruin / bruine (brui-ne)
  blauw / blauwe (blau-we)
• Words that end in more than one consonant also have no further spelling changes from adding -E endings:
  zwart / zwarte - 2 (zwar-te)
  paars / paarse - 2 (paar-se)
• Remember, it's all about long and short vowels. Words with voiceless E in the last syllable don't have other changes when an -E ending is added.
  mager / magere - 2 ('thin, skinny')
  edel / edele ('noble')

See World Map

oud jong (een) klein park - 2 lang - 2 - 3 ('long; tall') kort - 2 - 3 ('short') groot - 2 - 3 ('large, big, tall, great') klein - 2 ('small, little') oud ('old') jong ('young') nieuw ('new') de lange les ('the long lesson') het korte haar ('the short hair') de lange vraag ('the long question') het korte antwoord - 2 ('the short answer') de lange reis ('the long journey') het oude huis ('the old house') de nieuwe auto ('the new car') - (unusual AU pronunciation) het jonge gras - 2 ('the [young] new grass') een jonge hond - 2 ('a young dog') het nieuwe land - 2 ('the new [=reclaimed] land')

Dutch adverbs are the basic form of the word as you find it in the dictionary, there is not something like the -LY ending in English.
Adjectives almost always have an -E ending, only after 'een,' (and 'geen') adjectives for 'het' words don't get an -E ending:
de appel is groen - de groene appel - een groene appel - het groene appeltje - een groen appeltje
De lange man - een lange man - het lange boek - een lang boek - de baby slaapt lang
- But don't worry too much about it when you start speaking Dutch, you won't go wrong very often when you say all adjectives with an -E ending.

Dutch Grammar Words

Materials

You can avoid the ending and keep it simple by saying van - like 'of' in English: 'the chain is of iron.' In English it seems a bit old-fashioned, but in Dutch this is not uncommon. van hout ('of wood, wooden') - van ijzer ('[of] iron') de houten lepel - de lepel is van hout de ijzeren ketting - de ketting is van ijzer

Irregularities, Exceptions

S to Z, F to V A few words that end in -S change that S to Z when an -E ending is added, for instance: grijs / grijze ('grey') het haar is grijs - het grijze haar I hear a sound change like that in English 'house / houses,' but there is no spelling change in English. In Dutch, an -E ending also changes some word endings from F to V, for instance: braaf / brave ('well-behaved, obedient' [children and dogs] - a 'false friend,' it's not like English 'brave.') English also has this sound change, and this time shows it in spelling too, like in wife / wives.

Vowel Change A few words get a vowel change when an -E ending is added. It is unusual. glas / glazen ('glass') het glazen kopje - het kopje is van glas - 2 het glazen bord - het bord is van glas

-IG ending As you may have noted in the numbers paragraphs, the I of the -IG ending is pronounced as voiceless E. Thus, the G of this ending also doesn't double for the -E endings. zuinig / zuinige ('frugal' - a very Dutch trait.) De zuinige huisvrouw ('the frugal housewife') de roestige ketting - de ketting is roestig

More Colors & Materials

Numbers 20-100 (#2)

20 twintig

21 éénentwintig

22 tweeëntwintig

33 drieëndertig

44 vierenveertig

55 vijfenvijftig

66 zesenzestig

77 zevenenzeventig

88 achtentachtig

99 negenennegentig

step (picture by Peter Schuffelen)

The Catholic Minority in Holland I have been told that when I was four or five, I went door-to-door in our street to ask the neighbors if they were Catholics, and if not I told them that I could not come and play anymore. I guess the nuns in my kindergarten had talked about it; but maybe I took it too seriously, for I cannot imagine my brother or sisters doing such a thing. It's a another example of the former compartimentalization (verzuiling ) of Dutch society, groups living separate lives with their own churches, schools and organizations - but not neighborhoods. My little story was in the 1950s. With few people in Holland attending church anymore, the divides between the traditional religious communities largely disappeared in the 1960s and '70s. I can't imagine modern Dutchmen telling their children not to make friends with children from the other traditional groups. The Dutch war of liberation from Catholic Spanish rule (1568-1648) was in part over religious freedom for Protestants; but under Protestant rule in the new country the Dutch Catholics became second-rate citizens. The mainly Catholic Southern provinces became a kind of territories, governed from Holland, and like in England, Catholics could not hold government positions or be part of the government bureaucracy. When in the 1790s French armies occupied much of Europe, they brought with them the ideals of the French Revolution like equality, but it was ultimately the granting of the vote to more and more men that led to equal rights for Catholics in Holland. In the 1890s, about 50% of men had the vote, by 1917 all men got the vote, and in 1919 women got the vote too. My family are Catholics from the South of the country. My grandfather, who became a schoolteacher in the Dutch Indies in about 1910, said he felt he owed his job to the Catholic Party. At the time 30% to 40% of the Dutch population were Catholics, and their votes started to count in Parliament. My Dad told me that when he was appointed to a certain position in 1949 there was grumbling about 'too many Catholics,' which was nonsense, for the number in his job was much lower than the national average. But even though my ancestors were second-rate citizens and discriminated against, I'm proud of my country and its history. Of course many minorities in other parts of the world fared much worse than the Catholics of Holland.

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