Smallwhite needs help with Dutch grammar

[smallwhite]

Also 'laten wij gaan' sounds like a translation from English (for me)

You can find quick refreshers here and here and here.

* I'm not native *

I know! You're the one who said Dutch was easy and lured me into learning it!

[Jar-Ptitsa]

Also 'laten wij gaan' sounds like a translation from English (for me)

You can find quick refreshers here and here and here.

Thanks for the links. It seems that they say it often and my comment was wrong, sorry.

* I'm not native *

I know! You're the one who said Dutch was easy and lured me into learning it!

haha i always say because we must know if the advice is by a native or not.

[smallwhite]

Thanks for the links. It seems that they say it often and my comment was wrong, sorry.

No problem at all. After writing my post, I thought about it, and (1) realised that it's pretty normal for Dutch expressions to be similar to English expressions - they're both Germanic , and what's more, (2) they say it like that even in Chinese
讓 laten 我們 we 開始 beginnen 吧 maar！

[Jar-Ptitsa]

Thanks for the links. It seems that they say it often and my comment was wrong, sorry.

No problem at all. After writing my post, I thought about it, and (1) realised that it's pretty normal for Dutch expressions to be similar to English expressions - they're both Germanic , and what's more, (2) they say it like that even in Chinese
讓 laten 我們 we 開始 beginnen 吧 maar！

Yes, English and Dutch are very similar, and Dutch is similar to German as well, for sure.

It's amazing that they say it like that in Chinese as well!! In French it's different, but French and English are similar, of course, especially the words and phrases. I don't speak Chinese, unfortunately.

[tarvos]

Also 'laten wij gaan' sounds like a translation from English (for me), I think it's more Dutch to say 'gaan we' or 'zullen we (nu) gaan'

'laat het' or 'laten we dat' means stop now about this and 'laat gaan' also, to let it be and stop.

* I'm not native *

The thing is, we do not say "laten wij gaan", but rather "laten we gaan." If you say "wij", you are putting emphatic stress on the fact that WE are going, as opposed to another group of people. That's plausible, but relatively rare.

And that's another thing - please don't overuse wij, jij etc. In spoken Dutch they're actually used less, because they are emphatic pronouns - we tend to shorten and clip pronouns in speech when we can. In writing it's another story.

[Jar-Ptitsa]

Also 'laten wij gaan' sounds like a translation from English (for me), I think it's more Dutch to say 'gaan we' or 'zullen we (nu) gaan'

'laat het' or 'laten we dat' means stop now about this and 'laat gaan' also, to let it be and stop.

* I'm not native *

The thing is, we do not say "laten wij gaan", but rather "laten we gaan." If you say "wij", you are putting emphatic stress on the fact that WE are going, as opposed to another group of people. That's plausible, but relatively rare.

And that's another thing - please don't overuse wij, jij etc. In spoken Dutch they're actually used less, because they are emphatic pronouns - we tend to shorten and clip pronouns in speech when we can. In writing it's another story.

So I was right then, that people don't say 'laten wij gaan'. what a relief!! it sounded so weird that I was surprised when smallwhite showed me the links where they say it.

I thought that it was becuase it was translated from another language probably English, but you have explained why. I agree, 'laten we gaan' sounds ok. 'Laten wij gaan' sounds foriegn.

when you wrote don't overuse 'wij' 'jij' I think that you meant to tell the others, not me. I don't overuse those. They don't sound natural except for example if you say 'ik neem een warme chocolade, wat wil jij'?

[tarvos]

I meant that as a general comment yes. You're an advanced speaker :p

[smallwhite]

... it sounded so weird that I was surprised when smallwhite showed me the links where they say it.

I can't find "laten wij" on those pages, but in any case, my question was grammar-focussed and I'm mostly just interested in whether "laten wij/we gaan" or the other expressions are correct, and not the relative frequency each expression is used. It's not the expression's fault that there are few situations for its use

[tarvos]

... it sounded so weird that I was surprised when smallwhite showed me the links where they say it.

I can't find "laten wij" on those pages, but in any case, my question was grammar-focussed and I'm mostly just interested in whether "laten wij/we gaan" or the other expressions are correct, and not the relative frequency each expression is used. It's not the expression's fault that there are few situations for its use

True, but laten WIJ gaan (written like that) may not be ungrammatical, but it is so rare and clunky that it would more likely perk people's ears up in the sense of "what's she saying, what's going on here" rather than have people skip over it because it is grammatically correct, albeit a bit off. To me, seeing that, would be a surefire marker that people aren't exactly native. It's just not something anybody would normally say unless they had a really good reason to emphasize it - and I can't think of a single situation offhand where you'd do so. The real issue here is that the use of wij/we may not be ungrammatical per se, but using emphatic pronouns such as wij very often is extremely unnatural and not good Dutch. Especially in speech, the most likely environment for encountering the phrase "laten we gaan", emphatic pronouns are rarely used in general, except in certain contexts for a particular emphasis. It's really worth making sure you get the use of the pronouns right. I know it's confusing (and I tend to explain this nuance later, not to beginners), but to speak proper Dutch making the distinction between the different forms of the pronouns is very important to sound right.

[Jar-Ptitsa]

Also 'laten wij gaan' sounds like a translation from English (for me)

You can find quick refreshers here and here and here.

This seemed to me that you thought that I was wrong because on several dutch grammar websites they had 'laten wij gaan'. For what other reason would you tell me about 'refreshers' and give me the links?

I thought that you must be correct if several ducth grammar websites wrote it, but I was truly surprised and would never say 'laten wij gaan'

In my opinion, the only ones who would say 'laten wij gaan' are:

1. foreigners
2. robots

... it sounded so weird that I was surprised when smallwhite showed me the links where they say it.

I can't find "laten wij" on those pages, but in any case, my question was grammar-focussed and I'm mostly just interested in whether "laten wij/we gaan" or the other expressions are correct, and not the relative frequency each expression is used. It's not the expression's fault that there are few situations for its use

If you can't find 'laten wij gaan' on those pages, then why did you tell me that I needed refreshers when i said that 'laten wij gaan' sounded weird and foreign?

It's NOT the frequency of the expression. Those have different meanings:

laten wij gaan does NOT mean the same as laten we gaan

'laten wij gaan' sounds like a foreign robot sentence, but I will choose an example which is Dutch:

'Wat zullen wij doen? = ok, we know what the others will do, but what shall WE do?
'Wat zullen we doen?' = what shall we do?