Questions about Dutch sentences

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tarvos
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Re: Questions about Dutch sentences

Postby tarvos » Fri Dec 08, 2017 5:22 pm

First question - you answered it yourself.

Second - the second one requires wordt.

Worden means something is still going on, whereas using zijn in the passive voice means the process has finished.

Het is al 10 jaar niet meer gebruikt - it hasn't been used in ten years
Het wordt tegenwoordig niet meer gebruikt - It isn't in regular use anymore nowadays, or it is not being used regularly nowadays.

Dutch worden translates to present tense, passive voice, or sometimes future (context)
Dutch zijn translates to present perfect tense, passive voice (or sometimes past, context)
Dutch werden translates to past continuous, passive voice
Dutch waren translates to past perfect, passive voice
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Re: Questions about Dutch sentences

Postby tommus » Tue Dec 12, 2017 1:52 pm

Een sommetje oplossen gaat heel gemakkelijk met een rekenmachine.
It's easy to solve a mathematical problem with a calculator.

Source and translation: Dutch Word of the Day

I think a slightly better and more literal translation would be: A math solution is very easy with a calculator. Dutch Word of the Day often takes some poetic licence in its translations which I find to be counter-productive for language learning.

Question: Since "som" means "sum", sommetje implies the mathematics of addition, but it seems like the Dutch use "sommetje" as a general math calculation, including addition, subtraction, multiplication, division and other simple operations. Is that correct?
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Re: Questions about Dutch sentences

Postby trui » Tue Dec 12, 2017 2:52 pm

Sum is used in English too to mean an arithmatical problem.

"An arithmetical problem, especially at an elementary level.
‘we did sums at school, Mummy’"

https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/sum

Oplossen means to solve so you'd be taking more of a poetic license by leaving that out. If I wanted to do a more literal translation I'd say: Solving a math problem goes quite easily with a calculator. You could possibly even say 'Solving a sum goes quite easily...' but I don't personally use sum in that manner so I don't know if it'd be right.
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Re: Questions about Dutch sentences

Postby tommus » Tue Dec 12, 2017 4:22 pm

Yes, I agree. Very young children and adults talking with very young children use "sums" in English. But I don't think it is generally used amongst adults.

>>>>> Oplossen means to solve so you'd be taking more of a poetic license by leaving that out.

Your translation is more accurate than mine and that of DWOD. I guess it is a trade off between accurately translating the sentence the way a native would say it while retaining the literal word order as much as possible.

Een sommetje oplossen gaat heel gemakkelijk met een rekenmachine.
Solving a math problem goes quite easily with a calculator.
A math solution is very easy with a calculator.
"Een sommetje oplossen" is the subject of the sentence, so I translated it as such, retaining the "solve" in "solution". My translation fails to show the literal translation of gaat (goes) but I find using "goes" to be a bit awkward than "is" in this sentence.

Thanks for the comments. I think such discussion is very useful and certainly helps to cement the material into memory.
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Re: Questions about Dutch sentences

Postby tommus » Fri Dec 15, 2017 2:34 pm

Alleen als er sec gekeken wordt naar de economie ...
Only if there is a close look at the economy ...

This is the first time I have seen "sec" in this context. "sec" can have a lot of different meanings such as close, hard, careful, solid, course, dry, etc. But it seems like a Dutch word that is not used a lot. Google gives quite a few hits of "sec gekeken". I wonder how common that expression, and "sec" by itself, is in everyday Dutch? Are there some good examples?

Source: Scientias.nl article
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Re: Questions about Dutch sentences

Postby tarvos » Sat Dec 16, 2017 9:27 am

Sec is very common, and sec here doesn't mean any of the things you mentioned, but it means "purely" or "limiting ourselves to this one thing".
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Re: Questions about Dutch sentences

Postby tommus » Sat Dec 16, 2017 12:17 pm

tarvos wrote:Sec is very common, and sec here doesn't mean any of the things you mentioned, but it means "purely" or "limiting ourselves to this one thing".

So what would be the translation of the sentence fragment?

Alleen als er sec gekeken wordt naar de economie ...
Only if there is purely a look at the economy ... ?
Only if there is a narrow look at the economy ... ?
Only if there is an isolated look at the economy ... ?

Why would my original translation not be related to those?
Only if there is a close look at the economy ...

Is "sec" related to "second"?

Here are some fragments from a Google search:

Als sec gekeken wordt naar de omzet ...
Er wordt sec gekeken naar de cijfers ...
Om te bepalen of een beslissing juist of onjuist is moet er sec gekeken worden naar het moment waarop deze genomen is.
Daarbij wordt niet alleen sec gekeken naar de ...

The meaning is still illusive to me. Does "sec" usually appear only with "gekeken"? What are other examples that might be easier to understand?
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Re: Questions about Dutch sentences

Postby tarvos » Sat Dec 16, 2017 5:16 pm

Well yes that is the usual collocation. Word is from French and refers to dry, looking at one thing and not the rest.
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tarvos
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Re: Questions about Dutch sentences

Postby tarvos » Sat Dec 16, 2017 5:18 pm

Your translations are too broad
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Re: Questions about Dutch sentences

Postby tommus » Sun Dec 17, 2017 1:26 pm

De autoriteiten hadden de man al langer in het vizier.
The authorities had been watching the man for a long time.
The authorities had already been watching the man.
The authorities had been keeping an eye on the man [for a long time].
The authorities had been watching the man for quite some time.
Literal:
The authorities had the man already longer in the sight.

Source: Telegraaf article

I think this sentence illustrates how a language learner may make mistakes in an L2 because one language does some things subtly differently than another. An English native, perhaps remembering the Dutch phrase "in het vizier" might mistakenly say:

De autoriteiten hadden de man al lang in het vizier.

To use "langer" brings up the question of "longer than what?". And "al langer in het vizier" doesn't necessarily mean "for a long time". In fact, it might have been only for a very short time, as in the sense of "already". The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) said: "had been under investigation since earlier this year". Lots of subtleties in translations that contribute to non-native errors, and to the difficulty of providing parallel text as a language learning technique.
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