Learn how to ask "Where?"
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| Hallo allemaal! Ik heet Gabriella. Hi everybody! I’m Gabriella. |
| Welcome to DutchPod101.com’s “Nederlands in 3 minuten”. The fastest, easiest, and most fun way to learn Dutch. |
| In the last lesson, we learned how to ask "What" questions in Dutch. |
| This time, we are going to ask "Where" questions. |
| Imagine you want to ask where your friend is now. You will ask him Waar ben je? This is the exact translation of "Where are you?" |
| [slowly] Waar ben je? |
| So let’s break down this question. |
| First we had- |
| Waar, which is the translation of "Where" in Dutch. |
| Then comes ben, which is "are", the present tense form of the verb zijn which we have already studied. |
| Finally je, which is the word for "you". |
| So, altogether it is Waar ben je?, "Where are you?" |
| In Dutch, "Where" is translated as waar. |
| So for example, if you want to ask "Where do you live?" you will say Waar woon je? |
| Like English, the question word is placed in the first position here, then the verb, and then the subject. |
| Like wat, meaning “what”, from our previous lesson, waar is just as easy, short, and practical. It shouldn’t be complicated at all to ask questions with waar. Just remember that it is the first word in the sentence. |
| So let’s look at some questions that feature waar. |
| Say you want to ask where you are going with your friends. It’s as easy as saying, Waar gaan we heen? |
| [slowly] Waar gaan we heen? |
| You might remember gaan from one of our previous lessons. |
| You can also ask where someone is from by saying, Waar kom je vandaan? |
| [slowly] Waar kom je vandaan? |
| Which means “Where do you come from?” |
| Before ending this lesson, let’s look at one more usage for waar. Say you are lost somewhere in the Netherlands, and you want to know where the train is. To ask a stranger, simply stop them by saying Pardon “Excuse me”, a word we learned in one of the previous lessons. Then ask Waar is het treinstation? “Where is the train station?” |
| [slowly] Pardon, waar is het treinstation? |
| Of course, you can substitute het treinstation with any other place such as “the cinema”, de bioscoop. The sentence wouldn’t change at all. Waar is de bioscoop? |
| And it’s as simple as that! |
| Now it’s time for Gabriella’s Insights. |
| When Dutch people have forgotten where they left something, they tend to ask themselves where they left it. Say your friend forgot where she left her keys. She would say, Waar heb ik mijn sleutels gelaten? “Where did I leave my keys?” |
| It’s funny to hear them mumbling to themselves, but the sentence itself can also be turned into a practical question. If you switch the pronoun, you can ask others where they left something. Say you want to know where your friend left a book. Just ask, |
| Waar heb je het boek gelaten? “Where did you leave the book”? |
| [slowly] Waar heb je het boek gelaten? |
| In this lesson, we learned how to correctly use the Dutch word for "Where", waar, and also its different variations. |
| Now you can avoid getting lost! |
| In the next lesson, we’ll learn more about asking questions, this time using Wanneer in Dutch. |
| I’ll be waiting for you in the next Nederlands in 3 minuten lesson. |
| Tot ziens! |
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