Questions about Dutch sentences

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tarvos
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Re: Questions about Dutch sentences

Postby tarvos » Tue Jul 04, 2017 6:37 pm

De oud-minister means "the ex-minister or the former minister".

De oude minister means "the former as opposed to the one right now" or "the old minister" as in he is aged with grey hair and stuff.

The last sentences you quoted make no sense and I would never use them with nieuw.
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Re: Questions about Dutch sentences

Postby tommus » Tue Jul 04, 2017 10:33 pm

I understand the "oud-minister" case.

My main concern was why some of the adjectives had an "e" while others didn't, even though they were the same words. Is that just sloppy grammar, leaving off the "e" when grammatically, it should be there?
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Re: Questions about Dutch sentences

Postby tarvos » Wed Jul 05, 2017 11:02 am

Not just sloppy, but wrong.
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Re: Questions about Dutch sentences

Postby tommus » Fri Jul 07, 2017 12:52 pm

"Of loopt het allemaal niet zon vaart?"

Or is it really not going in that direction?
Or is it really not going to happen?

Are these reasonable translations?
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Re: Questions about Dutch sentences

Postby tarvos » Fri Jul 07, 2017 3:28 pm

zo'n vaart*

Approximate. I would say something like "or won't it be so quick/fast/terrible after all"

This is a metaphor and is commonly used to allay doubts or fears:

"Volgens mij heb ik mijn been gebroken.
- Nou, zo'n vaart zal het niet lopen. Het is gewoon een kneuzing."

"Ik denk dat we weleens met 7-0 kunnen verliezen!
- Zo'n vaart zal het niet lopen, als we ons goed organiseren kunnen we best winnen."
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Re: Questions about Dutch sentences

Postby tommus » Sat Jul 08, 2017 9:53 am

"Tuberculose is de belangrijkste doodsoorzaak. De ziekte waart al jaren door de kamp."

Tuberculosis is the main cause of death. The sickness [was/ran/roamed/haunted/is hanging around/...] for years through the camp.

I am confused about "waart". As a verb, it seems that it can have a variety of meanings.

I assume that "waart" fundamentally comes from the verb "waren". But I find "waren" to be difficult to understand. English speakers tend to think of "were", as a past tense of "to be" [We waren --> We were], the past tense of "zijn". But"we waren" is also the present tense of "waren" where I assume it does not mean "were" but has a different meaning. "Waren" seems to be a complicated "false friend" to English speakers.
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Re: Questions about Dutch sentences

Postby tarvos » Sun Jul 09, 2017 3:17 pm

Het* kamp

Waren has nothing to do with the verb to be. The equivalent would be "to roam, to haunt" in English. It's a different verb and the fact its present tense coincides with another past tense is a fluke.
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Re: Questions about Dutch sentences

Postby tommus » Fri Jul 21, 2017 12:35 pm

" En tijdens het bestuderen van laatstgenoemde ster ontdekten de wetenschappers iets geks."

And during the study of the last-named star, the scientists discovered something weird.

I would have expected "de" in front of "laatstgenoemde ster". The previous sentence had a list of star names and they are referring to the last one.

Source: First paragraph in this Scientias.nl article
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Re: Questions about Dutch sentences

Postby tommus » Fri Jul 21, 2017 1:34 pm

Pronunciation of "...lijk"

There are many Dutch words ending with "lijk". Here are 486:

486 Dutch words ending in lijk

For the vast majority of these words, "lijk" is a suffix meaning approximately "-like" or "-ly". And most are pronounced approximately like the English "lick". Just a few are pronounced approximately like the English "like".

The general rule seems to be: if "lijk" is a suffix, then "lick". If "lijk" is just part of a word but not an obvious suffix, then "like".

So "lijk", "gelijk" and "vergelijk" rhyme with "like". However there seem to be exceptions. To me, it would seem that the "lijk" in zienlijk and baarlijk is a suffix but as far as I can tell, they also rhyme with "like". Then there is "gelijkelijk" which has both "like" and "lick" in the same short word.

Could someone confirm that the following words indeed have the "like" sound? And are there other common words with the "like" pronunciation that I am missing?

lijk, gelijk, zienlijk, baarlijk, vergelijk, gelijkelijk, aanlijk
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Re: Questions about Dutch sentences

Postby urubu » Sat Jul 22, 2017 4:25 pm

tommus wrote:Pronunciation of "...lijk"

Could someone confirm that the following words indeed have the "like" sound?

lijk, gelijk, zienlijk, baarlijk, vergelijk, gelijkelijk, aanlijk


The '-lijk' in 'zienlijk', 'baarlijk' and 'gelijkelijk' is the adjectival suffix and hence pronounced [lək].

Try this: http://rijmwoordenboek.vandale.nl/rijm/baarlijk
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