# Dutch/Lesson 12A

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* Intermediate level: cycle 3
Lesson 12A ~ Lesson 12A
Lijdende vorm ~ Passive voice
* • Passive voice
* • Intervocalic -d-
* • Talking hobbies

## Vocabulary 12A

Conjunctions are not the only way that sentences can be connected. There are many adverbs, adverbial expressions or conjunctive expressions and a few more that can refer to the contents of another phrase. Study this page with connective terms and then translate the following narrative.

## Exercise 12A-1

    Hij leest dit boek
    De mannen breken de glazen
    Morgen geeft hij een les Nederlands
    Waarom doet hij dat?
    Zij haten hem
    Wij schrijven dit boek
    Wij schrijven boeken
    Ongetwijfeld drinken zij veel bier
    Hier moet je het afval in de bak doen
    Daar bakken ze dat lekkere brood
    Dit boek wordt door hem gelezen
    De glazen worden door de mannen gebroken
    Morgen wordt er een les Nederlands door hem gegeven
    Waarom wordt dat door hem gedaan?
    Hij wordt door hen gehaat
    Dit boek wordt door ons geschreven
    Er worden boeken door ons geschreven
    Ongetwijfeld wordt er door hen veel bier gedronken
    Hier moet het afval in de bak gedaan worden
    Daar wordt dat lekkere brood gebakken
       Notice that indefinite objects like een les or boeken usually result in an impersonal phrase that contains 'er' or is initiated with it.
       Notice also that general (indefinite) subjects like je, ze, men do not result in a prepositional object with door, because they are dummies, not real agents / actors

## The vanishing -d-

You may have noticed that a -d- is not always pronounced as such. E.g. goedendag is often pronounced, even written, as goeiendag. This is a general phenomenon in the language. Intervocalic -d- easily weakens to a [j] - sound as in beyond or to a [w] sound or it disappears altogether. The phenomenon is associated with register differences. Actually saying goedendag rather than goeiendag makes you sound very formal, even stiff, distant and unfriendly. Goeiedag is a lot friendlier, and most people shorten that even further to dag

### Some examples
#### hou(d)en

The -d is often dropped in the singular or the present tense, even in written Dutch:
    Hou(d) je van sport?
    Ik hou(d) van je
Before a vowel, people might slip the -d- back in:
    Ik houd ervan.
In the plural the -d- is seldom dropped in the written standard, but in colloquial speech "houen" and "gehouen" are pretty common in some parts.

#### me(d)e

The prepositional adverb of met was originally mede. Often this is pronounced and written mee, and this forms has long since been accepted as standard Dutch.. Interestingly both forms are still in active use, but there is a register difference. Mede sounds official and high register:
    De minister deelde mede dat hij zou aftreden - the minister announced that he would resign
    Jan deelde mee dat hij op vakantie ging - John announced that he was going on vacation.
Mede is also used to mark an additional reason:
    Mede omdat hij ziek was, ging hij niet mee ~ Another reason he did not come along was that he was ill
In this case it cannot be replaced by mee, but the usuage is definitely high register.

#### ne(d)er

The adverb neder (the cognate of nether) can still be seen in Nederland or vernederen (to humiliate), but in many cases it has been replaced by neer: neerzien, neergaand etc.

#### le(d)er

The cognate of leather is leder and this is also the high register translation. Lower register is leer.
The same goes for the adjectives lederen - leren.
    Ons meubelbedrijf handelt in lederen bankstellen en stoelen - Our furniture store retails leather sofas and sectionals
    De motorrijder droeg een leren jas en leren broek - The biker wore a leather jacket and leather pants
No true hotblooded tough biker guy would be caught dead saying lederen anymore than a furniture store would stoop to advertising leren stoelen, unless intended for bikers perhaps.

#### zegde/zei

The past tense of zeggen is another example of the intervocalic -d- phenomenon. The original past tense was zegde; the -g- weakened to zeide. In analogy to the strong verbs this lost its final syllable -de- to form zei. It is certainly not unusual to hear the plural zeiden pronounced as zeien.
This did not happen in all derived verbs. E.g. toezeggen gas a past tense zegde toe.
The adjective zijden - meaning silken is also often pronounced as zijen.

#### gou(d)en ou(d)e

Popular music and its hit parade do not wish to be considered high register and so a song that was a great hit some long time ago is een gouwe ouwe (a golden oldie) and nothing else. And young people can be heard to refer to their parents as m'n ouwe lui. You certainly don't want to scold somebody an oude lul, that really would have to be ouwe lul, although non-native speakers perhaps best refrain from such rude expressions. (Lul means dick and no, it is not high register.)

#### wou(d)en

The past tense of willen was originally wolde(n). In Dutch -old- and -ald- has generally become a diphthong ou. Hence gold is goud in Dutch and old is oud. Thus wolde became woude in the singular and wouden in the plural. The weakness of -d- shortened the singular to a pseudo-strong monosyllabic wou and the plural to wouen or wouwen. This is however considered low register and dialectal by some people who insist that it must be replaced by wilde and wilden. In its official spelling standard the Taalunie has not gone along with that and has recognized wou and wouden as legitimate standard Dutch words. The form wouen is mentioned in ANS but was apparently an intervocalic bridge too far for the Taalunie.

#### het wouwaapje

The tendency to consider dropping the intervocalic -d- somehow substandard -despite it being widespread and centuries old- has led to an interesting hyper-correction of the name of a small heron species the Little Bittern (Ixobrychus minutus). It is very secretive and nocturnal. Its nightly calls sound like wow-wow and its original name was wouwaapje: a little monkey that does wow-wow. People mistook the wouw part as having resulted from the intervocalic -d- and 'restored' the -d- to woudaapje for their 'official' bird lists and bird guides. This changed the meaning of the name beyond recognition, because woud means forest. The bird actually lives in reedy wetlands. As diminutives are also not deemed 'official' enough to appear in such exalted listings and books, Wikipedia now insists that the name has to be woudaap. Thus the diminutive Little Bittern that wows in the reed marshes has been transformed into a Forest Ape.
It made Hans Dorrestijn sigh:
The name "Wouwaapje" was already in use for centuries and for that reason alone has the right to exist. Millions of people have know this little animal under this naam. "Wouwaapje" is real. The name "Woudaap" is made up, a product of the board room.
If only there were a language court, then I would sue. I want my Bladkoninkje back (another small bird now titled Bladkoning by the bird guides) and my little sweet Wouwaapje!
Notice that Dorrestijn also defies the Taalunie decree that species names should not be capitalized.

#### Spelling

In 19th century spelling the phenomenon was rendered in the spelling by a circumflex: mêe, nêer, Nêerlands etc., but this convention has been dropped later on.

## Vocabulary exercise

Study the phrases used when talking about hobbies
Then listen to the following sound files and write down the Dutch and the English translation:
    noicon
    noicon
    noicon
    noicon
          noicon
    noicon
          noicon
    Vanmorgen lees ik de krant.
    Vanmiddag ga ik naar de bioscoop.
    Dit weekeinde voetbal ik
    Houd je van voetbal?
          Ik houd helemaal niet van voetbal.
    Wat is je lievelinssport.
          Mijn lievelingssport is basketbal.
    This morning I am reading the newspaper
    This afternoon I am going to the cinema
    This weekend I am playing football
    Do you like football?
          I don't like football at all.
    What is your favorite sport?
          My favorite sport is basketball

## Appendix

* ↑ At least as it used to be pronounced in English. Many people today replace the -y- by a glottal stop and say be'ond
* ↑ Hans Dorrestijn 2012 Dudeljo! ISBN 978 90 388 9635 9