Lesson 1: It's a start
In the first lesson we'll start slow. We'll learn about a special
'y'-ish letter in the Dutch alphabet. The sound of most of the consonants
and simple vowels can be heard.
-
Some of the personal pronouns are listed and used along with
out first, and immediately irregular verb.
We'll learn very short sentences with this verb and some adjectives
to use with it.
And finally some abusive language.
Spelling
Pronunciation
Grammar
Vocabulary
Sentences
Bad language
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Spelling
Well, Dutch has all the usual letters of the alphabet, plus
one.
That is: abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz and ÿ (ij)
-
Yep, that new letter "ÿ" is very hard to enter on a normal
QWERTY keyboard.
That's why we normally use "ij" (an "i" and an "j") in typed
documents (in handwritten documents usually the "ÿ" is used).
-
So "ij" actually counts as one letter in Dutch (we even have
it in Scrabble :-).
Of course, we also have the i and j as separate letters, but
I can't come up with a word in which j follows i and isn't used as an "ij".
So whenever you see "ij" in a word it's the ÿ.
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For example: "hij" {he}, "IJsselmeer" (name of a lake).
The capital "ij" is written as "IJ"; so both letters are capitalized.
The "y" is like in English, sometimes vowel, and sometimes a
consonant.
It is only used in words derived from a foreign language, like
Greek, e.g. "hypnose" {hypnosis} or "yoghurt" {yogurt}.
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As in most languages the first character of a sentence starts
with a capital (well almost all of the time).
Also names of persons, geographical names start with a capital.
Nouns don't normally start with a capital (it does in the German language
for instance).
-
Sentences end with a "."
Pronunciation
In this text and following lessons we'll use /Word/ to give
an example of an English word which contains one more (capitalized) letters
which have an approximate pronunciation as the Dutch letters, syllable
or word. We'll use (and already have) {word} to denote the English translation
of a Dutch word.
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The more common (with English) consonants are:
- B as in "bad" /Bath/ (B at end of words sounds like "P")
- D as in "dom" /Doll/ (D at end of words sounds like "T")
- F as in "fijn" /Fix/ and "laf" /lauGH/
- H as in "help" /Help/
- J as in "jas" /Yes/ (not like J in /Jet/, that's more a DJ sound)
- K as in "kat" /Cat/ and "ik" /liCK/
- L as in "los" /Lot/ and "tol" /toLL/
- M as in "mijn" /Mine/ and "dom' /suM/
- N as in "niet" /Not/ and "tin" /tiN/
- P as in "pas" /Pen/ and "sop" /cuP/
- Q as in "quiz" /Quiz/
- R as in "rot" /Run/ and "kar" /faR/ (don't roll it)
- S as in "sop" /Sob/ and "los" /boSS/
- T as in "tin" /Tin/ and "rot" /weT/
- V the same as "F", "V" can't be at the end of a word or syllable.
- W as in "wat" /Where/ and "ruw" /hoW/
- X as in "sex" /seX/
- Z as in "zak" /Zoo/ and "quiz" /quiZ/
The vowels differ more from the English, and they are so many
ways to pronounce them!!
Pffff. To make it more difficult is that the sound of a vowel
depends (just like in English) on the surrounding consonants and
other vowels. Two or three adjacent vowels can also form diphthongs, i.e.
they makes one sound together.
-
But let's make an attempt at the more easy ones, the ones we'll
use for the moment in the next of this lesson.
- A as in "kat", sounds something like /cUt/
- E as in "ben" /zEn/
- I as in "ik" /dIck/
- O as in "dom" /sOld/
- IJ as in "hij", sounds not entirely not like /whY/
And finally one easy diphthong:
Grammar
We'll start of easy with most of the single personal pronouns,
the verb {to be} and the general layout of simple sentence. The single
personal pronouns are (we'll skip one for now, which is used in the form
of etiquette):
- "ik" {I}
- "jij" {you}
- "hij" {he}
- "zij" {she}
- "het" {it}
There are also other forms of "jij", "hij" and "zij", which
we'll tell in another lesson.
The verb {to be} is "zijn" in Dutch. This is a very irregular
verb, but it's the most used one, as in all languages. We'll give the single
present forms:
- ik ben
- jij bent /bend/
- hij is
- zij is
- het is
In general, "hij", "zij" and "het" have the same verb forms,
so we'll only use "hij" or "zij" in future verb lists.
The general form of a simple sentence is:
-
subject verb object
or
subject verb adjective
-
Since we only have the verb {to be} for now, we'll use the adjective
form only, like:
{You are sweet.}
Jij bent lief.
-
To negate an adjective use the form: NOT ADJECTIVE
The word for {not} is "niet", so:
{He is not sweet.}
Hij is niet lief.
Vocabulary
Sentences
Bad language
Unlike the English, Dutch doesn't normally use anal words to
express one's anger with something. We, the Dutch, are more genital oriented,
both male and female genitals are used (the male ones are generally used
for male persons, the female ones for female persons and also for general
things).
Of course, the English (mostly American) influence is present
in the common Dutch language. Words like 'shit' are commonly used, especially
by the youth.
We also have blasphemous words which are generally in the same
format as the English.
Another good (or bad) habit of us is to diagnose people we don't
like as sufferers of a particular illness or sickness.
We will only list and translate the words below, not try to
pronounce them, since we haven't had most of the vowel and consonant sounds
yet. Also don't use them in a sentence yet, just shout them: "Eikel!!!"
eikel |
{dickhead} |
godverdomme |
{goddamned} |
klerelijer |
{cholera sufferer} ("klere" is slang for "cholera") |
klootzak |
{scrotum} |
kutwijf |
{cunt vixen/shrew} |
lul |
{dick} |
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