Questions about Dutch sentences

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Re: Questions about Dutch sentences

Postby smallwhite » Sun Jan 15, 2017 3:44 pm

tommus wrote:"Als je de aarde vanuit de ruimte bekijkt, besef je dat die klein en kwetsbaar is."

If you look at the Earth from space, you realise that it is small and vulnerable.

Question: Could it also be written with "het" instead of "die"? ("... besef je dat het klein en kwetsbaar is.")

Note that the die in your sentence is actually a demonstrative pronoun; a demonstrative pronoun for common gender things that are further away. (Put that down!, celui-là). The sentence literally says "you realise that that is small and vulnerable".

You translated the Dutch sentence into English using "it" - a personal pronoun - because that's what's idiomatic in English. But "die" is not really a personal pronoun. See Wikibooks: Using demonstrative pronouns instead of personal pronouns.

Wikibooks wrote:Using die avoids the issue, ... Increasingly, personal pronouns are reserved for reference to persons (natural gender as in English). To refer to things people resort to substituting the demonstratives.

And both your dies would be that demonstrative pronoun die:

tommus wrote:"Als je de aarde vanuit de ruimte bekijkt, besef je dat die klein en kwetsbaar is. Die is ook blauw en mooi."
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Re: Questions about Dutch sentences

Postby tommus » Sun Jan 15, 2017 11:36 pm

"Hij zal indien daartoe gedwongen eerder vertrekken."

He will, if forced to do so, leave earlier.

I don't see "indien" very often in my reading.

How is the usage of "indien" different from 'als"?

Could you say: "Hij zal als daartoe gedwongen eerder vertrekken"?
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Re: Questions about Dutch sentences

Postby Jar-Ptitsa » Mon Jan 16, 2017 2:19 am

you can find the answers yourself now.
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Re: Questions about Dutch sentences

Postby tommus » Mon Jan 16, 2017 4:10 pm

"Een expeditie werd op touw gezet."

An expedition was set up.

This is from an earlier question. Tarvos explained about "opgericht" and "georganiseerd", etc.

But now a question about "op touw gezet".

Is that a common expression? What is the metaphor about "rope"?
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Re: Questions about Dutch sentences

Postby tarvos » Mon Jan 16, 2017 4:27 pm

tommus wrote:"Hij zal indien daartoe gedwongen eerder vertrekken."

He will, if forced to do so, leave earlier.

I don't see "indien" very often in my reading.

How is the usage of "indien" different from 'als"?

Could you say: "Hij zal als daartoe gedwongen eerder vertrekken"?


Indien is not "if" as much as it means "in case something happens". It stipulates a prerequisite for something to happen, rather than a condition. Indien also has a quite formal connotation, it's much more common in writing than in speech. Indien basically implies "if and only if this criterion is met".

You could not replace it with als in your sentence. You can, however, replace it with "wanneer".

"Een expeditie werd op touw gezet."

An expedition was set up.

This is from an earlier question. Tarvos explained about "opgericht" and "georganiseerd", etc.

But now a question about "op touw gezet".

Is that a common expression? What is the metaphor about "rope"?


Yes, it is. It basically means that rope was used in the construction (referring to times when things were built using ropes, such as tents. It's often used in contexts requiring more primitive technology). Nowadays it can be used metaphorically though. I would use it to refer to expeditions in the wild, for example.
Last edited by tarvos on Mon Jan 16, 2017 5:51 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Questions about Dutch sentences

Postby tarvos » Mon Jan 16, 2017 4:32 pm

smallwhite wrote:
tommus wrote:"Als je de aarde vanuit de ruimte bekijkt, besef je dat die klein en kwetsbaar is."

If you look at the Earth from space, you realise that it is small and vulnerable.

Question: Could it also be written with "het" instead of "die"? ("... besef je dat het klein en kwetsbaar is.")

Note that the die in your sentence is actually a demonstrative pronoun; a demonstrative pronoun for common gender things that are further away. (Put that down!, celui-là). The sentence literally says "you realise that that is small and vulnerable".

You translated the Dutch sentence into English using "it" - a personal pronoun - because that's what's idiomatic in English. But "die" is not really a personal pronoun. See Wikibooks: Using demonstrative pronouns instead of personal pronouns.

Wikibooks wrote:Using die avoids the issue, ... Increasingly, personal pronouns are reserved for reference to persons (natural gender as in English). To refer to things people resort to substituting the demonstratives.

And both your dies would be that demonstrative pronoun die:

tommus wrote:"Als je de aarde vanuit de ruimte bekijkt, besef je dat die klein en kwetsbaar is. Die is ook blauw en mooi."


In the Netherlands, it's also equally common to use a personal pronoun to refer back to things in such a way - and most commonly in the Netherlands this is done only with regard to the natural gender of the object or person in question. In case we don't explicitly know we're talking about something feminine, the standard pronoun we use is "hij". However, we sometimes corrupt that to "ie" when we speak quickly. Die sounds more colloquial and slangy to me - it is becoming more common, though, but in the second sentence I would strongly prefer "hij".

Belgians would use grammatical gender and refer to the earth as "zij".
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Re: Questions about Dutch sentences

Postby tommus » Wed Jan 18, 2017 3:25 pm

"Door de opwarming verzwakken de winden die de om de pool cirkelen, wat warme lucht de kans biedt het noordpoolgebied binnen te dringen."

Because of the warming, the wind that circles the Pole weakens, offering some warm air the chance to push into the North Pole region.

First note the difficulty in this sentence to translate it directly, requiring quite a bit of word order changes.

But my question is about the first "de" in "die de om de pool cirkelen". Is that a typo? Should it be deleted?

Article in NewScientist.nl
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Re: Questions about Dutch sentences

Postby tarvos » Thu Jan 19, 2017 9:20 pm

That is a typo.
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Re: Questions about Dutch sentences

Postby tommus » Fri Jan 20, 2017 3:06 pm

"En wel nadat de hoeveelheid zuurstof in de atmosfeer rap was toegenomen."

And well after the amount of oxygen in the atmosphere rapidly increased.

"rap" could maybe also be translated as briskly.

I don't remember reading "rap" before. Is it a common word, and are "rapidly" and "briskly" good translations?

From NewScientist.nl article
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Re: Questions about Dutch sentences

Postby tarvos » Fri Jan 20, 2017 3:44 pm

Yes, it's in order. Rap is a synonym of snel. Sounds a bit more colloquial and nice. Often used about sports players, or to emphasize something happened truly fast. I would translate it as "rapidly" or "quickly".
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