Questions about Dutch sentences

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Jar-Ptitsa
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Re: Questions about Dutch sentences

Postby Jar-Ptitsa » Thu Nov 02, 2017 8:52 pm

Iversen wrote:Vogeltje: your are right, but you promised not to continue the discussion with Tommus !



Sorry, I thougth that you meant that I must stop about his profile with "B2 Dutch" - I didn't know that you meant I must stop with the answers when he asks questions.

Ok, I won't answer those as well now.
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Re: Questions about Dutch sentences

Postby Jar-Ptitsa » Thu Nov 02, 2017 9:00 pm

Iversen, i will delete my replies if you want.

I didn't know that you meant the answers, I thought that you meant the discussion about B2 Dutch.

I promise that I won't reply to Tommus's questions now as well.
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Re: Questions about Dutch sentences

Postby tommus » Thu Nov 02, 2017 9:32 pm

tarvos wrote:Look at the sentence again and try and figure out what the mistake in your translation is. Yours isn't correct either.

You are right. Is this better?

Astronomers have lost a 300-kilometre-sized space rock.

I'll sleep better tonight knowing that there aren't 300 kilometre-sized lost asteroids out there.
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Re: Questions about Dutch sentences

Postby tarvos » Thu Nov 02, 2017 9:38 pm

Yup, that's a lot better.
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Re: Questions about Dutch sentences

Postby tommus » Fri Nov 17, 2017 12:12 pm

De opbrengst van de hierna volgende reclames gaat naar het goede doel.

The profits from the advertisements hereafter will go to a charity.

This Dutch sentence and its translation are from today's Dutch Word of the Day.

DWOD identifies hierna as an adverb. However, it appears to be an adjective in the Dutch sentence and an adverb in the English sentence. I normally don't spend a lot of time dissecting grammar. But in this case, it seems that this word can mean the same thing but can be an adverb or an adjective, depending on where it is placed in the sentence. In Dutch, adjectives and adverbs usually have the same spelling, much more so than in English. But in both languages, you can move the word around and change its part of speech.

So could the Dutch sentence be also correctly written as:

De opbrengst van de volgende reclames gaat hierna naar het goede doel.

And would the English translation of the original Dutch sentence be better as:

The profits from future advertisements will go to a charity.

or better:

The profits from future advertisements will go to a good cause.
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Re: Questions about Dutch sentences

Postby tarvos » Fri Nov 17, 2017 12:19 pm

Correctly written, yes.

But with a different meaning.

You see, in that first sentence, "hierna" is an adverb, because it modifies "volgende" - an adjective.

So the meaning in the first case is: "The profits from the advertisements that hereafter follow, will go to charity."

The meaning of your sentence is different: it would mean that the profits from the following advertisements (whenever they occur), will thereafter go to charity.

The hierna volgende refers to the fact you will see the ads appear in succession right after you read that sentence.

Placing hierna in a different position in the sentence means it modifies something else. :)
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Re: Questions about Dutch sentences

Postby tommus » Sat Nov 25, 2017 11:37 am

"Voor een schappelijk prijsje kunnen zij een winter lang verblijven onder de Spaanse winterzon."
For a reasonable price, they can stay all winter long under the Spanish winter sun.
(Source: Andere Tijden article)

My question is about the word order of "onder de Spaanse winterzon". Normally the infinitive of the verb goes to the end of the sentence. However, there are a large number of Dutch verb-preposition combinations that take a prepositional phrase "after" the verb. In this case, it appears that "verblijven onder" is such a verb-preposition combination.

The Dutch Grammar page on this subject contains a long list of such verb-preposition combinations.

Some other similar sentences from this Andere Tijden article that seem to contain verb-preposition combinations are:

"... met het idee om het bejaardentehuis tijdelijk te verhuizen naar de Costa del Sol." >>> naar de Costa del Sol
"De laatste jaren vertrekken regelmatig groepen ouderen richting Spanje om te overwinteren in goedkope hotels." >>> in goedkope hotels
"... die niet kunnen lopen naar het toestel." >>> naar het toestel
"Naast de eigen kok is ook een groot deel van de medische staf meegevlogen naar de Spaanse badplaats." >>> de Spaanse badplaats

For each of these sentences, would it be incorrect to put the prepositional phrase in front of the infinitive? The normal rule seems to be to put the "place" in front of the verb. How is a Dutch learner supposed to figure out the word order for these verb-preposition combinations other than rote learning? Do native Dutch speakers always use the same word order for verb-preposition combinations?
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Re: Questions about Dutch sentences

Postby smallwhite » Sat Nov 25, 2017 11:55 am

tommus wrote:Normally the infinitive of the verb goes to the end of the sentence. However, there are a large number of Dutch verb-preposition combinations that take a prepositional phrase "after" the verb. In this case, it appears that "verblijven onder" is such a verb-preposition combination.

The Dutch Grammar page on this subject contains a long list of such verb-preposition combinations.

I could have misunderstood you, but that winterzon Prepo Phrase did not go after its Infinitive because it falls under one of the listed verb-prepo combos. Combos in that list can go both verb->prepo or prepo->verb. That winterzon Prepo Phrase is after its Infinitive simply because:

Components after the right side

"It is very common to place something after the right side [the infinitive] of the core sentence, especially when you are dealing with long sentence components."
"It is very common to place the prepositional phrase after the right side [the infinitive]. The longer the prepositional phrase, the greater the necessity to place it outside the core sentence."
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Re: Questions about Dutch sentences

Postby tommus » Fri Dec 08, 2017 12:58 pm

Ruimtesonde Voyager 1 start voor het eerst in 37 jaar enkele stuwraketten. En geen centje pijn!
Space probe Voyager 1 starts some thrusters for the first time in 37 years. And no problem at all.
Source: Scientias artikel

I've not seen "geen centje pijn" before but a Google search shows that it seems to be used a lot. Is that a common Dutch expression? What other ways would Dutch native speakers say the same thing? "geen enkel probleem"? "helemaal geen probleem"? "absoluut geen probleem"? Are all those OK?
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Re: Questions about Dutch sentences

Postby tommus » Fri Dec 08, 2017 1:26 pm

Het is al tien jaar niet meer gebruikt. Het is tegenwoordig niet meer gebruikt.
It was not used (has not been used) in ten years. It is not used any more.
Are both of these Dutch sentences correct? I think the second one is probably better as: Het wordt tegenwoordig niet meer gebruikt.

I think that a native English speaker probably makes a lot of mistakes in Dutch using the auxiliary verb "was" where "is" or "wordt" is correct. I suppose the only way to get this right is rote learning of the main verbs. But it still seems difficult. For example:

Het is geschilderd.
Can this mean all of these: "It is painted" and "it was painted" and "It has been painted"?
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