Learn how to use the Dutch word er, which has several meanings
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Gabriella:Hi everyone, Gabriella here! Welcome to DutchPod101.com. This is Lower Beginner Season 1, Lesson 24 - Going North in the Netherlands. |
| Jacob:Hallo! I'm Jacob. Welcome to the lesson. |
| Gabriella:We’re going to talk about the northern part of the Netherlands. The Dutch just call it the North! |
| Jacob:That’s right listeners! As Gabriella said, we’ll be talking about the North, and we’re going to use a lot of conjunctions as we do it! |
| Gabriella:Yes, so in this lesson we’ll be concentrating on conjunctions through a dialogue between Kim and Irene. |
| Jacob:Kim and Irene are friends. They’re sitting at home making plans for the holidays. And as they’re friends, they’ll be using informal Dutch. |
| Gabriella:That sounds nice! Let’s listen to the conversation. |
| DIALOGUE |
| Kim: Ga je mee naar het noorden van Nederland? Er zijn veel meren en de natuur is prachtig. |
| Irene: Ik ben er nooit geweest, maar ik heb er over gelezen op internet. |
| Kim: Ik heb een zeilboot in Friesland. We kunnen ermee op de meren zeilen. |
| Irene: Zijn er ook eilanden in het noorden? |
| Kim: Ja, de Waddeneilanden. |
| Irene: Hoeveel Waddeneilanden zijn er? |
| Kim: Er zijn er vijf, en een paar kleine eilanden. |
| Gabriella: Let's hear the conversation one time slowly. |
| Kim: Ga je mee naar het noorden van Nederland? Er zijn veel meren en de natuur is prachtig. |
| Irene: Ik ben er nooit geweest, maar ik heb er over gelezen op internet. |
| Kim: Ik heb een zeilboot in Friesland. We kunnen ermee op de meren zeilen. |
| Irene: Zijn er ook eilanden in het noorden? |
| Kim: Ja, de Waddeneilanden. |
| Irene: Hoeveel Waddeneilanden zijn er? |
| Kim: Er zijn er vijf, en een paar kleine eilanden. |
| Gabriella: Now let's hear it with the English translation. |
| Kim: Ga je mee naar het noorden van Nederland? Er zijn veel meren en de natuur is prachtig. |
| Gabriella: Do you want to come with me to the North of the Netherlands? There are lots of lakes and nature is stunning. |
| Irene: Ik ben er nooit geweest, maar ik heb er over gelezen op internet. |
| Gabriella: I have never been there, but I have read about it on the Internet. |
| Kim: Ik heb een zeilboot in Friesland. We kunnen ermee op de meren zeilen. |
| Gabriella: I own a sailing boat in Friesland. We could sail with it on the lakes. |
| Irene: Zijn er ook eilanden in het noorden? |
| Gabriella: Are there any islands in the North as well? |
| Kim: Ja, de Waddeneilanden. |
| Gabriella: Yes, the Wadden Islands. |
| Irene: Hoeveel Waddeneilanden zijn er? |
| Gabriella: How many Wadden Islands are there? |
| Kim: Er zijn er vijf, en een paar kleine eilanden. |
| Gabriella: There are five (of them) and some small islands. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Gabriella:Is northern Holland really so much nicer than the rest of the country? |
| Jacob:Well, I wouldn’t say that. There are lots of nice places, but if you like sailing, beaches, and beautiful nature, then this is a good place to be. |
| Gabriella:So do the Dutch like water sports, such as sailing, swimming, and surfing? |
| Jacob:Yes, I think so. Maybe it has to do with our very long maritime tradition. It has been said that the Dutch used to rule the waves. But that was in the 17th century. Who knows what’s left of it. |
| Gabriella:Can you tell me some more about walking through the sea to another island? |
| Jacob:Yes, the Waddenzee or the “Wadden sea” is very shallow, so when the tide is low you can walk on the sandbanks and the water may not even come up to your knees. Of course you have to be careful and plan well, because when the tide is high, the water may come up to your neck, or higher. |
| Gabriella:Isn’t that dangerous? |
| Jacob:Well accidents do happen. But if you have a good guide, or if you’re very good at reading maps and tide tables yourself, you should be all right. |
| Gabriella:Gosh! That’s not for the faint-hearted, Jacob! Okay, now let’s take a look at the vocabulary and phrases. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Jacob: zeilen [natural native speed] |
| Gabriella: to sail |
| Jacob: zeilen [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Jacob: zeilen [natural native speed] |
| Jacob: noorden [natural native speed] |
| Gabriella: North |
| Jacob: noorden [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Jacob: noorden [natural native speed] |
| Jacob: lezen [natural native speed] |
| Gabriella: to read |
| Jacob: lezen [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Jacob: lezen [natural native speed] |
| Jacob: zeilboot [natural native speed] |
| Gabriella: sailing boat |
| Jacob: zeilboot [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Jacob: zeilboot [natural native speed] |
| Jacob: eiland [natural native speed] |
| Gabriella: island |
| Jacob: eiland [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Jacob: eiland [natural native speed] |
| Jacob: hebben [natural native speed] |
| Gabriella: to have |
| Jacob: hebben [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Jacob: hebben [natural native speed] |
| Jacob: natuur [natural native speed] |
| Gabriella: nature |
| Jacob: natuur [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Jacob: natuur [natural native speed] |
| Jacob: paar [natural native speed] |
| Gabriella: couple |
| Jacob: paar [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Jacob: paar [natural native speed] |
| Jacob: meer [natural native speed] |
| Gabriella: lake |
| Jacob: meer [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Jacob: meer [natural native speed] |
| Jacob: internet [natural native speed] |
| Gabriella: internet |
| Jacob: internet [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Jacob: internet [natural native speed] |
| KEY VOCAB AND PHRASES |
| Gabriella:Let’s take a closer look at some of the words and phrases from this lesson. Right at the beginning of the dialogue, Kim asks Ga je mee naar het noorden van Nederland? What exactly does she mean? |
| Jacob:The verb meegaan means “to go along” or “to accompany”. This is one of the many verbs in Dutch that is separable. This means that in some tenses or grammatical constructions, the verb is split. So here Kim asks “Do you want to come with me to the North?” In Dutch that is Ga je mee naar het noorden? |
| Gabriella:So the verb meegaan is split and becomes ga je mee! |
| Jacob:Yes, that’s it. Gaan is “to go” and mee can be best translated as “with”, so she literally asks “will you come with me?” |
| Gabriella:What about het noorden? |
| Jacob:In Dutch, naar het noorden means “to the north”. But in this case she uses it as a place name, the way in English you might say “the North” when you mean the northern part of the country. |
| Gabriella:At some point Irene says Ik heb erover gelezen op het internet. What is the ge before the verb lezen? We learned before that lezen is “to read”. |
| Jacob:Gelezen is the past participle of the verb lezen. Not all verbs use this construction, but a lot of them do. The verb lopen is “to walk”, and the past participle is gelopen. There are hundreds of examples like that, but there are many exceptions too. |
| Gabriella:Yes, as in all languages, there are always exceptions to rules. |
| Jacob:Yes, indeed. |
| Gabriella:Okay, now onto the grammar. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Gabriella:In this lesson, we’re going to learn about the word er. |
| Jacob:Yes, this word is used a lot, sometimes as an adverb, sometimes as a pronoun. Let’s look at the sentence Ik ben er nooit geweest, which means “I’ve never been there”. Here er refers to a place they talked about before, namely the North of the Netherlands when they said het noorden van Nederland. So that’s fairly easy. And Ik ben er nooit geweest has the same grammatical structure as in English: “I’ve never been there.” |
| Gabriella:So it’s just a reference to a place that’s been talked about before. |
| Jacob:Right, but then she goes on and says Ik heb er over gelezen, which in English is “I’ve read about it”. So in this case er is translated as “it”. It’s still a reference to the place; the North. While in English you use a different word for having read about something or having been there, in Dutch you use the same word er. |
| Gabriella:There’s also one point where Kim says We kunnen ermee op de meren zeilen, which is “We could sail with it on the lakes” in English. Is that also the same er as in ermee? |
| Jacob:Yes it is, but here it’s used in combination with a preposition. Mee means “with” and when combined with the er it becomes ermee, which means that they could sail “with it”. So the “with” means using the boat and the “it” refers to the boat they talked about before. The word ermee is an adverb, while er can be an adverb or a personal pronoun. |
| Gabriella:I see. So, does this word have any more uses? |
| Jacob:Oh yes! It has many uses, in fact. It can also be used as a temporary subject in the sentence, let’s say an auxiliary subject. For example, Kim says Er zijn veel meren, meaning “There are lots of lakes”. Here er’refers to the North, that has been talked about before, but it also has the role of the subject in a sentence that does not really have a subject. |
| Gabriella:So, let’s try to summarise it. Er is very often used to refer to places or things that have been mentioned before. |
| Jacob:That’s not all it does. It can also be used as a subject in sentences that do not have a real subject, for example in the sentence Er zijn veel meren, which means “There are a lot of lakes.” |
| Gabriella:And the word er can also act as an adverb or a personal pronoun, right? |
| Jacob:Yes, that’s right! But listeners, we’ll reserve that for another series. |
Outro |
| Gabriella:That’s it for this lesson. Listeners, please have a good look at the lesson notes again as it’s a little tricky. See you soon. Tot gauw allemaal! |
| Jacob:Tot ziens! |
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