Dutch Study Group

An area with study groups for various languages. Group members help each other, share resources and experience. Study groups are permanent but the members rotate and change.
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PeterMollenburg
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Re: Dutch Study Group

Postby PeterMollenburg » Mon Jul 17, 2023 1:25 pm

Nice video. Love the canals, love the architecture, love the multilingualism.
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lichtrausch
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Re: Dutch Study Group

Postby lichtrausch » Mon Dec 04, 2023 9:43 pm

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Le Baron
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Re: Dutch Study Group

Postby Le Baron » Mon Dec 04, 2023 10:46 pm

Interesting video.
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tommus
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Re: Dutch Study Group

Postby tommus » Sun Dec 10, 2023 11:54 am

Dutch small words pushed to the end of the sentence. Normally you think of the prefix part of a separable verb being pushed to the end of the sentence. Or you think of 'toe" as a small preposition-like word that often gets pushed to the end of a sentence. But I can't remember ever seeing both situations in the same sentence. Until today.

Het hotel brandde tot de grond toe af.

That sentence construction would be a challenge for a Dutch-language learner to use in speaking (or writing). I wonder how common this is, since I don't remember ever seeing it before?
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Le Baron
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Re: Dutch Study Group

Postby Le Baron » Sun Dec 10, 2023 4:34 pm

My eye would pick out this in the sentence as a common word unit:

Het hotel brandde tot de grond toe af. Then I just see: Het hotel brandde af.

So that this would also be correct: Het hotel werd tot de grond toe afgebrand.

Once it's been decided that the sentence is going to be formed in the past tense with the verb separated it'll be correct for the 'af' to go at the end and its collision with toe is only because of that common way of forming 'to the ground = tot de grond toe' (i.e. 'towards' the ground).
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lingohot
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Re: Dutch Study Group

Postby lingohot » Sun Dec 10, 2023 4:36 pm

tommus wrote:Het hotel brandde tot de grond toe af.


Ik denk dat "tot de grond toe" bij elkar horen omdat het een uitzdrukking is en "af" gewoon een deel van "afbranden" is.

PS: Le Baron has already answered.
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Le Baron
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Re: Dutch Study Group

Postby Le Baron » Sun Dec 10, 2023 4:43 pm

lingohot wrote:Ik denk dat "tot de grond toe" bij elkar horen omdat het een uitzdrukking is en "af" gewoon een deel van "afbranden" is..

Je hebt wel gelijk dat het een vaste uitdrukking is.
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tommus
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Re: Dutch Study Group

Postby tommus » Mon Dec 11, 2023 12:38 am

I agree that it is pretty obvious that it is the combination of a separable verb and a common usage of 'toe'. Easy to read. But my point was: As a non-native Dutch speaker (or even writer), would you ever expect that your mind and your speech would put such a combination together. Even if you did, you might be a bit unsure about it.
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Le Baron
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Re: Dutch Study Group

Postby Le Baron » Mon Dec 11, 2023 1:56 am

tommus wrote:I agree that it is pretty obvious that it is the combination of a separable verb and a common usage of 'toe'. Easy to read. But my point was: As a non-native Dutch speaker (or even writer), would you ever expect that your mind and your speech would put such a combination together. Even if you did, you might be a bit unsure about it.

I suppose I can only speak for myself and I can say that it 'feels' right when I see/hear it. But it's only because this sentence: het brandde tot de grond toe af is a very fixed way of saying it.

Here's another similar type of sentence: het ging tot nu toe mis (misgaan) = until now it went wrong.

Theoretically you could say: hij kende tot nu toe toe (up until now he conceded) or hij sprak ons tot vervelens toe toe (he harangued us to the point of boredom), het hoorde tot nu toe toe (up to now it belonged)! though I don't know if I'd expect them daily. It does however show the pattern: first part of separable verb > fixed phrasal unit: tot nu toe/tot vervelens toe (or similar e.g. van nu af aan) > separable prefix.

Het gaat van nu af aan mis. = it will go wrong from now on... etc.
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Le Baron
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Re: Dutch Study Group

Postby Le Baron » Tue Jan 16, 2024 3:43 pm

Marc van Oostendoorp (Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen) on the 'zachte g', which he explains is actually the 'original' sound in Dutch and the 'hard g' a later development. Here in Utrecht lots of older people have a softer g and I was told it was always somewhat softer until after the war.

Interesting is the lack of distinction in the north between e.g. gloor/chloor. This is also true for words starting with 'g' and followed by 'r' where the r can often be subsumed. So that e.g. 'groot' sounds a bit like 'goot', except when the speaker has a really good uvular trill. Only when you get right down and into Belgium is the distinction fully clear with soft g and tongue trill (though some also have an uvular).

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