Road to B1 in Dutch

[Ug_Caveman]

I said I would get back to studying, but decided against it when I realised I was very close to cognitive burnout - balancing a job, other studies and regular language study (amongst gym training and other pursuits) has taken a bit of a toll - so I'm enjoying the Christmas break for what it is, a holiday.

I feel like my brain needs a bit of time to settle again before I go back to the books, but this hasn't stopped me maintaining contact with the language.

In particular I listened to a more advanced (A2/B1) video by Dutch With Kim where she talks about the nuances between using zullen or gaan for the future tense. I did this semi-asleep and without watching the subtitles - I'd say I still understood around 85-90% of the total content of the video, only struggling in bits where she spoke fast (and had I been fully awake I suspect that would have been different.)

I struggle quite a lot with imposter syndrome (in almost everything I do), but small moments like that remind me that I've still made a hell of a lot of progress from where I once was.

If all goes well and I do sit my B1 exam in May, I think I'll add a second language in summer to give my brain something new to work with. Italian and Norwegian both seem appealing...

[Ug_Caveman]

Ik ben vandaag terug aan het studeren. Les dertig was met een paar kleine problemen voltooid.

Specifiek weet ik niet wanneer 'waar' of 'wat' te gebruiken om en vraag te stellen. Bijvoorbeeld, is het: "Waar luistert je naar? of "Wat luistert je naar?"

Ook, 'dat' of 'die' om twee zinnen te verbinden? Bijvoorbeeld: "Ik weet dat ze hier komt" of "Ik weet die ze hier komt"?

Maar na een week rust, voel ik energiek en klaar om meer voortgang te maken! Ik hoop dat ik voor februari de hele cursus kan afmaken. Ik heb mijn 'spark' weer gevonden.

[Le Baron]

Specifiek weet ik niet wanneer 'waar' of 'wat' te gebruiken om en vraag te stellen. Bijvoorbeeld, is het: "Waar luistert je naar? of "Wat luistert je naar?"

Take your example sentences:

1. Waar luistert je naar
2. Wat luistert je naar

(I scratched the 't' on luistert, as you know it disappears in 2nd-person when subject/verb are reversed).

Reformulated in English it is asking: to what are you listening? And we know that these are usually separable verbs in Dutch. In those two sentences only one has a separated separable verb. Number 1: waarnaar. It could also be: Waarnaar luister je?. Similar formulations: Waaraan denk je? / Waar denk je aan?; waarmee ga je hem helpen? / Waar ga je hem mee helpen?; Waar houd je van? / Waarvan houd je?

Preceded by nouns: Podcasts/liedjes/iets waarnaar je moet luisteren / waar je naar moet luisteren.

Wat is not wrong in some more difficult sentences, but generally you can start all these type of questions with waar.

Ook, 'dat' of 'die' om twee zinnen te verbinden? Bijvoorbeeld: "Ik weet dat ze hier komt" of "Ik weet die ze hier komt"?

In a sentence like the above it's always dat. This is the standard: Ik hoop dat..., Ik weet dat..., Ik denk dat... etc. Perhaps you are also thinking of cases like this: Was het deze fiets die hij heeft gebruikte? In that sentence die is acting as 'which' rather than 'that'.

[Ug_Caveman]

Specifiek weet ik niet wanneer 'waar' of 'wat' te gebruiken om en vraag te stellen. Bijvoorbeeld, is het: "Waar luistert je naar? of "Wat luistert je naar?"

Take your example sentences:

1. Waar luistert je naar
2. Wat luistert je naar

(I scratched the 't' on luistert, as you know it disappears in 2nd-person when subject/verb are reversed).

I tend to make far more mistakes when I type vs when I write by hand so thanks for pointing that one out.

Reformulated in English it is asking: to what are you listening? And we know that these are usually separable verbs in Dutch. In those two sentences only one has a separated separable verb. Number 1: waarnaar. It could also be: Waarnaar luister je?. Similar formulations: Waaraan denk je? / Waar denk je aan?; waarmee ga je hem helpen? / Waar ga je hem mee helpen?; Waar houd je van? / Waarvan houd je?

Preceded by nouns: Podcasts/liedjes/iets waarnaar je moet luisteren / waar je naar moet luisteren.

Wat is not wrong in some more difficult sentences, but generally you can start all these type of questions with waar.

Thank you so much for giving a full English equivalent! I really was struggling to get my head around this one.

Ook, 'dat' of 'die' om twee zinnen te verbinden? Bijvoorbeeld: "Ik weet dat ze hier komt" of "Ik weet die ze hier komt"?

In a sentence like the above it's always dat. This is the standard: Ik hoop dat..., Ik weet dat..., Ik denk dat... etc. Perhaps you are also thinking of cases like this: Was het deze fiets die hij heeft gebruikte? In that sentence die is acting as 'which' rather than 'that'.

Again, thank you so much, I was really struggling with that one too.

[tungemål]

Reformulated in English it is asking: to what are you listening? And we know that these are usually separable verbs in Dutch. In those two sentences only one has a separated separable verb. Number 1: waarnaar. It could also be: Waarnaar luister je?. Similar formulations: Waaraan denk je? / Waar denk je aan?; waarmee ga je hem helpen? / Waar ga je hem mee helpen?; Waar houd je van? / Waarvan houd je?

Good explanation, but I think your terminology is wrong. This is not seperable verbs.

Ug_Caveman, the grammar you need to read up on is er/waar+preposition. It's one of the grammar points that I also find confusing.

[PeterMollenburg]

Reformulated in English it is asking: to what are you listening? And we know that these are usually separable verbs in Dutch. In those two sentences only one has a separated separable verb. Number 1: waarnaar. It could also be: Waarnaar luister je?. Similar formulations: Waaraan denk je? / Waar denk je aan?; waarmee ga je hem helpen? / Waar ga je hem mee helpen?; Waar houd je van? / Waarvan houd je?

Good explanation, but I think your terminology is wrong. This is not seperable verbs.

Ug_Caveman, the grammar you need to read up on is er/waar+preposition. It's one of the grammar points that I also find confusing.

Agreed. Le Baron provides some pretty decent explanations of Dutch grammar which help refresh my understanding at times too, including this one, but yes, these aren't separable verbs. Altough, I can see why he might think this due to the presence of a preposition + verb to which it is usually attached (or separated from). I've referred to a trusty course book for clarification, bear with the long-winded details of the pronoun er, which tungemål is spot on with, it leads to clarifying the use of waar.

(Directly cited from Hugo Dutch in 3 Months):

The word er can be used as a pronoun. The pronouns het, hem and ze referring to things cannot be used after prepositions in Dutch, and the construction er + preposition is used instead. It can either be written as one word:

Eg
De kinderen spelen vaak ermee.
The children often play with it.
Ik heb een half uur erop gewacht.
I've waited for it for half an hour.

or be separated by other items such as adverbial expressions:
De kinderen spelen er vaak mee.
Ik heb er een half uur op gewacht.

In this function, er can be replaced by daar which is translated by 'that':

De kinderen spelen daar vaak mee.
The children often play with that.

It can also be replaced by hier, which is translated by 'this':

De kinderen spelen hier vaak mee.
The children often play with this.

Er is replaced by waar when asking a question:

Waar spelen de kinderen mee?
What are the children playing with?
(end of citation from Hugo Dutch in 3 Months)

Thus, it seems that basically waar is used instead of wat when asking a question with 'what' but a preposition (aan, mee, op, van etc) is present.

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I also noticed a minor error (perhaps a typo) in one of the examples:

Perhaps you are also thinking of cases like this: Was het deze fiets die hij heeft gebruikte? In that sentence die is acting as 'which' rather than 'that'.

This should be either:
Was het deze fiets die hij heeft gebruikt?
(no 'e' at the end of 'gebruikt'. Hebben + past participle = perfect tense)
or:
Was het deze fiets die hij gebruikte?
(verb stem + 'te' = past tense. While the use of the past tense here is by no means incorrect, it's less likely to be the tense used but ultimately it depends on when and how the bicycle was used)

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As for die and dat...

These are relative pronouns used in relative clauses (when referring back to something already mentioned).

Die is used for common gender nouns, all people (see note below) and all plurals.

De auto die mijn zus gekocht heeft.
The car my sister bought.

De vrouw die veel talen geleert heeft.
The woman who learned many languages.

De honden die samen gerend hebben.
The dogs that ran together.

Dat is used for neuter nouns.

Het grote gebouw dat wij gisteren gezien hebben.
The large building that we saw yesterday.

Note: Some resources state neuter nouns referring to people also use die, while others cite the use of dat :
Het meisje dat onder de brug gelopen is.
Het meisje die onder de brug gelopen is.
The girl who walked under the bridge.

For the record, I'd use dat, but I may be incorrect.

Dat is also used for general reference (not referring back to a particular noun, but providing further commentary or explanation, as Le Baron has mentioned).
Ik denk dat...
Hij zegt dat...
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A couple of trickier notes (again from Hugo Dutch in 3 Months)
When a preposition precedes die referring to people in a relative clause, die changes to wie.

De jongen aan wie ze het geld gaf, is haar broer.
The boy to whom she gave the money is her brother.

De man van wie dit huis is, heeft tien katten.
The man whose house this is has ten cats.

Similarly, dat or die in a relative clause referring to things with a preposition present becomes, low and behold, waar+preposition,

De televisie waarnaar jullie kijken, is dertig jaar oud.
The television you (plural) are watching is thirty years old.

De pen waarmee ik schrijf, is van hem.
The pen I am writing with is his.

[Ug_Caveman]

Reformulated in English it is asking: to what are you listening? And we know that these are usually separable verbs in Dutch. In those two sentences only one has a separated separable verb. Number 1: waarnaar. It could also be: Waarnaar luister je?. Similar formulations: Waaraan denk je? / Waar denk je aan?; waarmee ga je hem helpen? / Waar ga je hem mee helpen?; Waar houd je van? / Waarvan houd je?

Good explanation, but I think your terminology is wrong. This is not seperable verbs.

Ug_Caveman, the grammar you need to read up on is er/waar+preposition. It's one of the grammar points that I also find confusing.

What I struggled with is when 'wat' becomes 'waar' more than anything else, so Le Baron's explanation still helped me quite a bit (separable question words I guess?)

Relative clauses really are my biggest struggle in Dutch...

[Ug_Caveman]

It can also be replaced by hier, which is translated by 'this':
De kinderen spelen hier vaak mee.
The children often play with this.

Funnily enough this is the one thing I've never really struggled with - hier being used to mean this makes far more sense to me than any other aspects of the er/hier/daar/waar + preposition malarkey.

[Le Baron]

Good explanation, but I think your terminology is wrong. This is not seperable verbs.

Ug_Caveman, the grammar you need to read up on is er/waar+preposition. It's one of the grammar points that I also find confusing.

This is correct. I can claim tiredness (it was 2am), but it's no use. I wrote too quickly and made a mistake.

I'll just note that I don't stick to with grammar terminology very rigidly most of the time, especially when it's not helpful or clear. I only want people to understand how to use language. The rule for these questions is:

1. Preposition+person
2. Preposition+thing

Ug_Caveman's question belongs to the second type. When you use a verb where a preposition is also necessary, you use wie if the question involves a person and waar if the question is about a thing/place etc. So...

Type 1: Naar wie zit je te kijken? ; Voor wie is hij bang?; Met wie ga je naar de bioscoop? (met Jan).

Type 2: Waarnaar zit je te kijken?; Waarvoor is hij bang?; Waarmee ga je met Jan?

[Le Baron]

I also noticed a minor error (perhaps a typo) in one of the examples:

This should be either:
Was het deze fiets die hij heeft gebruikt?
(no 'e' at the end of 'gebruikt'. Hebben + past participle = perfect tense)
or:
Was het deze fiets die hij gebruikte?
(verb stem + 'te' = past tense. While the use of the past tense here is by no means incorrect, it's less likely to be the tense used but ultimately it depends on when and how the bicycle was used)

A typo indeed. I originally wrote it as perfect tense and changed it to past for clarity, then didn't remove the 'heeft'.