Questions about Dutch sentences

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Re: Questions about Dutch sentences

Postby trui » Tue Jun 20, 2017 1:52 pm

I don't know about that particular example though it looks normal to me but don't worry about the separation thing--it soon starts to just feel right/natural once you've gotten used to it. After all, verbs often go to the end of the sentence so why not adjectives and prepositions? :)

I recommend chatting with native speakers a lot, either through text or through speech.
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Re: Questions about Dutch sentences

Postby tarvos » Tue Jun 20, 2017 5:14 pm

tommus wrote:"De auto wil niet starten."

The car doesn't want to start.

"Willen" is a false friend in English. It means "to want", not "will". However, occasionally, there seems to be a grey area, as in the sentence above. In English, you would usually say "The car will not start". There is a subtle difference because "The car doesn't want to start" could mean it is showing some signs of starting but just can't make it, whereas "The car will not start" means it really will not.

I wonder in Dutch if "De auto wil niet starten" does have the connotation that it "doesn't want" to start, as opposed to something more definite such as "De auto start niet"?


You got it exactly right, it means the start-up process is glitchy. Although we could just speak metaphorically.

The second one is the only way you could say that
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Re: Questions about Dutch sentences

Postby tommus » Fri Jun 23, 2017 3:05 pm

"Hij wilde in het belang van het onderzoek niet meer kwijt."
In the interests of the investigation, he didn't want to reveal any more.

"Hij wilde niet meer van zijn geld kwijten."
Is this Dutch sentence correct? Could it be translated in these two different ways (two different meanings)?
He didn't want to lose any more of his money.
He didn't want to lose his money any more.

Is it better to use "verliezen" (as below)? Can this sentence also be translated both ways (as above)
"Hij wilde niet meer van zijn geld verliezen."
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Re: Questions about Dutch sentences

Postby tommus » Fri Jun 23, 2017 3:10 pm

"Het hotel zei over reservetenen te beschikken, maar wel te balen van de diefstal."

The hotel said it had a reserve toe available, but was annoyed by the theft.

Strange as it might sound, I think this is the correct translation. Comments?

Strange story about a Canadian toe
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Re: Questions about Dutch sentences

Postby tarvos » Fri Jun 23, 2017 6:16 pm

They had reserve toes available (more than one). Other than that, correct, yes.

Kwijt is an adjective, not a verb, so kwijten doesn't exist.

Verliezen is an alternative if you don't want to use kwijt.
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Re: Questions about Dutch sentences

Postby tommus » Fri Jun 23, 2017 10:00 pm

tarvos wrote:Kwijt is an adjective, not a verb, so kwijten doesn't exist.


Well, I think kwijten exists but perhaps not the way I used it. Here is what Van Dale says about kwijten:

Betekenis ' kwijten '
Je hebt gezocht op het woord: kwijten.
kwij·ten (kweet, heeft gekweten)
1 voldoen: een schuld kwijten; zich van een plicht kwijten vervullen

On http://www.majstro.com:
(ik) kwijt
(jij) kwijt
(hij) kwijt
(wij) kwijten
(gij) kwijt
(zij) kwijten

And on Verbix.com:
ik kwijt
jij kwijt
hij kwijt
wij kwijten
jullie kwijten
zij kwijten

ik zou kwijten
jij zou kwijten
hij zou kwijten
wij zouden kwijten
jullie zouden kwijten
zij zouden kwijten

And on https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/kwijten
Verb[edit]
kwijten
(transitive) to lose
(transitive) to quit

So what am I missing? Why is this wrong?

"Hij wilde niet meer van zijn geld kwijten."
Or would it be:
"Hij wilde niet meer van zijn geld gekweten."
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Re: Questions about Dutch sentences

Postby tarvos » Sat Jun 24, 2017 7:28 am

Out of your two sentences it has to be the first (willen always takes the infinitive and never the participle), but I've never ever ever seen that verb used on its own in Dutch in 28 years. It's much more common to use kwijtschelden, not kwijten.

The fact the word exists in a dictionary doesn't mean we actually use it, and I don't think this word gets used a lot in this context if at all. Stick to "kwijtschelden" if you want to say "nullify someone's debts".

The combination with plicht (or taak) is used, but quite old-fashioned.

Hij wilde zijn geld niet kwijt (He didn't want to lose his money). If you say kwijten it means something else anyway.

Kwijt usually means lost (and we don't know where it is), and that word gets used a lot.
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Re: Questions about Dutch sentences

Postby tommus » Tue Jul 04, 2017 11:57 am

"Een aangepast dieet kan ervoor zorgen dat koeien een stuk minder boeren laten."
A modified diet can ensure that cows burp a bit less.

I wonder if Dutch speakers and especially Dutch farmers (boeren) are conscious of the fact that "boeren" means both "farmers" and "burp/belch". Is there a connection? ;)

Source: Article in NewScientist.nl
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Re: Questions about Dutch sentences

Postby tarvos » Tue Jul 04, 2017 1:38 pm

Only if a bad pun was their intention.
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Re: Questions about Dutch sentences

Postby tommus » Tue Jul 04, 2017 3:17 pm

De oud-minister van Financiën
de oude minister van Veiligheid en Justitie
De voormalig minister van Financiën
de voormalige minister van Buitenlandse Zaken
de oude minister van Binnenlandse Zaken die de nieuwe minister van Binnenlandse Zaken

This is a collection of sentence fragments from Dutch/Belgian newspapers. There are a lot of adjectives for "old" and "former" that have both an "e" and no "e", despite being in front of a "de" word.

It seems like, if there is a hyphen, such as in "oud-minister", then the correct usage is without the "e". But that doesn't explain all the other missing "e"s.

Here are some more:

de nieuw minister van VWS
de nieuw minister van Binnenlandse Zaken
de nieuw minister van Justitie
de nieuw minister van pensioen
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