Top Dutch Verbs - Part 1

Learn the top Dutch verbs

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Lesson Transcript

Hi everyone, I'm Thomas.

"Hallo iedereen, ik ben Thomas."

Welcome to another whiteboard lesson.

In this lesson you'll learn some of the most common verbs in the Dutch language and ways

to use them.

Let's get started.

Okay, let's look at the vocabulary.

The first verb is luisteren.

"Listen."

Luisteren.

Let's move on to the second one.

Kijken.

"Watch."

Kijken.

Our next one is eten.

"Eat."

Eten.

Drinken.

"Drink."

Drinken.

Our next one is spelen.

"Play."

Spelen.

Let's move on to schrijven.

Tricky to pronounce.

It means "write."

Schrijven.

Slapen.

"Sleep."

Slapen.

Gaan.

"Go."

Gaan.

Studeren.

"Study."

Studeren.

And our last one is lezen.

"Read."

Lezen.

Let's look at the dialogue.

This is part of a conversation between two people on the phone.

When I read, I want you to pay attention to the verb we just studied.

Find the verb and see how it's used in the dialogue.

Wat ben je aan het doen?

Ik luister naar muziek.

Did you find the verb?

It's luisteren.

Or when in the first person form, like here, luister.

As you can notice here and in the later examples,

often the dictionary form of Dutch verbs ends in en.

You can see that on all of these verbs.

This part is then dropped to create the stem of the verb for conjugation.

Usually, though, plural forms such as we, you and they are identical to the dictionary form.

Now let's look at some speaking examples.

Ik kijk televisie.

"I am watching TV."

Do you notice the verb?

It is kijken or here in the first person form, kijk.

Another example.

Ik eet een boterham.

"I am eating a sandwich."

And the verb here is eten, to eat, or in the first person form, ate.

An interesting thing about this sentence is the Dutch word for sandwich, boterham.

It consists of a combination of the words "butter" and "ham."

"Butter" and "ham."

Boterham.

"Butter ham."

Boterham.

Now let's look at the sentence pattern.

This pattern will be the structure that all of our dialogues will follow.

"Ik verb object."

"I verb object."

Each time we are using the first person singular.

In Dutch, ik, I, followed by the corresponding verb form.

In Dutch, the general description for listening to music is muziek luisteren.

However, when conjugated and used in a sentence, the particle naar or "to" is added.

Ik luister naar muziek.

"I am listening to music."

Let's also look at the first line, the question.

Wat ben je aan het doen?

"What are you doing?"

Doen means "to do."

As you know, English often uses the present continuous tense to indicate something that

is currently happening, like the "are doing" in this question.

In Dutch, you can often just use the present perfect tense for this, which you can see

in this lesson's example sentences.

Ik kijk televisie means "I am watching television."

The present perfect suffices to describe something that is currently happening, that you are

currently doing.

However, if you want to emphasize that something is actually currently happening, we use the

particle aan het plus the dictionary form of the verb, which here is doen, "to do."

As a sentence form, this is quite unique to the Dutch language.

You probably noticed me using it quite a lot in the Dutch core words lesson.

Wat ben je aan het doen?

"What are you doing?"

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