Vocabulary (Review)

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Lesson Transcript

Hi everyone. I'm Thomas. Hallo, ik ben Tomas. Welcome to the Dutch Whiteboard Lessons.
In this lesson, you'll learn how to ask and give directions in Dutch. Let's get started.
Let's look at the dialogue. A student is asking for directions to get to the library.
While listening to the dialogue, I want you to focus on how directions are asked and how
they are given. Ready? Here we go.
Waar is de bibliotheek? De bibliotheek is naast de school.
Where is the library? The library is next to the school.
Let's do it one more time a little bit slower.
Waar is de bibliotheek? De bibliotheek is naast de school.
De bibliotheek is naast de school.
Now let's look at some more examples. Het park is achter de bibliotheek.
Het park is achter de bibliotheek. The park is behind the library.
Het theater is hier. The theater is here.
Did you notice? We always use the same pattern. Place is LOCATION. The structure of the pattern
is identical to the English. Place is location.
Let's look at the vocabulary. You'll notice that many words closely resemble their English
counterparts. First we have one that's slightly different. The library, de bibliotheek,
de bibliotheek, the bibliotheek.
Next, the park in Dutch is het park, het park, het park.
The bank in Dutch, de bank, de bank, de bank.
The coffee shop in Dutch is het cafe, het cafe, het cafe.
The theater in Dutch is het theater, het theater, het theater.
The school in Dutch is de school, de school, de school.
There in Dutch is daar, daar, daar. It's opposite here in Dutch, very similar sounding, hier, hier,
hier, hier. Behind in Dutch is achter, achter, achter.
And then opposite or in front of, same word in Dutch, tegenover, tegenover, tegenover.
Then next to in Dutch becomes naast, naast, naast.
Now let's look at left and right. Left or on the left in Dutch is links, links, links.
And right or on the right is rechts, rechts, rechts.
Knowing how to say left and right is of course very useful when giving directions.
The bibliotheek is links, the library is on the left. By the way, if you are looking for a place
to have a coffee in the Netherlands it's better to not use the English word
coffee shop. In Dutch the English term coffee shop is used for a very different type of establishment.
From our vocabulary you can tell that Dutch has two gendered articles, de and het.
De is both masculine and feminine, like the German der and die, or the French le and la, combined.
Het is neutral, like the German das. On the one hand this makes Dutch simpler than many European
languages because the gender of the words has no influence on the grammar, like it does in German,
French or Italian. However, there is no rule that explains which article to use, de or het.
If you understand some German or French you can often rely on the gender of the Dutch word being
the same as in those two languages. However, there are exceptions. The German das both,
title of the famous film, is de bot in Dutch. Learning the correct article is purely a matter
of experience.

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