Vocabulary (Review)

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Lesson Transcript

Hi everyone, I'm Thomas.
Hallo daar, ik ben Thomas.
Welcome to another Dutch Whiteboard lesson.
In this lesson you'll learn how to use adjectives to describe people in Dutch.
Let's get started.
Okay, let's look at the vocabulary.
First we have the Dutch word for "tall," which is:
lang
Going on to the next one, as you can see, I've added some variations in parentheses.
There's a slight difference, but these have essentially the same meaning.
Let's have a look at each.
The Dutch word for short can be:
klein
Alternatively, it can also be pronounced:
kort
We have another one with a variation for 'slim,' which in Dutch can be:
slank
Alternatively, you could say:
dun
Dun literally means "thin."
Onto its opposite, "fat."
In Dutch,
dik
Beautiful in Dutch. Again, two variations. Very commonly,
mooi
Or, the other word, knap.
This is usually used in reference to men.
knap
Its opposite, "ugly" in Dutch is:
lelijk
And to "be bald", which in Dutch is:
kaal
The double "a" here extends the sound of the "a".
kaal
Young in Dutch sounds very similar.
jong
And then finally, it's opposite, "old" in Dutch, commonly:
oud
A more polite version for older people is
bejaard
Let's look at the dialogue.
As I'm reading, I want you to pay attention to the adjectives.
Find what the adjective is and see how it's used in the dialogue.
You ready? Here it goes.
Dat is mijn oudere broer.
"That's my older brother."
Hij is lang!
"He is tall."
Now let's look at some more examples.
Our first one here is: Zij is lang!
Zij is lang, which translates to "she's tall".
Our second example, similar structure.
Hij is jong.
translates in English to "he's young."
Now let's look at the sentence pattern. This pattern is the structure that we follow in the dialogue and all of our examples.
Hij is [ADJECTIVE].
Or
Zij is [ADJECTIVE].
Which corresponds in English to "he is [ADJECTIVE]" or "she is [ADJECTIVE]".
As you can see, it's It's an identical structure to the English.
You may have noticed that an adjective was also used in the first sentence of the dialogue.
Did you notice it?
It's ouderen, "older."
By adding this, we give additional information about the brother.
Here, the listener learns that it's the speaker's older brother, who is the tall one, which is useful in case you have more than one sibling.
Another peculiarity you may have noticed.
Here and there you'll find this "y" with two dots on it, here in "mijn", "hij", "zij" etc.
As you can tell from my pronunciation, this is a vowel that in Dutch is pronounced /eɪ/.
In handwriting, commonly you write it as a Y with two dots on it, but when you type it on the computer, it's actually a combination of an I and a J, which is why the dots are here.
Even though it's a combination of an I and a J, in Dutch, it is considered a vowel pronounced /eɪ/.

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