Dutch Study Group

[lichtrausch]

[Le Baron]

Interesting video.

[tommus]

Dutch small words pushed to the end of the sentence. Normally you think of the prefix part of a separable verb being pushed to the end of the sentence. Or you think of 'toe" as a small preposition-like word that often gets pushed to the end of a sentence. But I can't remember ever seeing both situations in the same sentence. Until today.

Het hotel brandde tot de grond toe af.

That sentence construction would be a challenge for a Dutch-language learner to use in speaking (or writing). I wonder how common this is, since I don't remember ever seeing it before?

[Le Baron]

My eye would pick out this in the sentence as a common word unit:

Het hotel brandde tot de grond toe af. Then I just see: Het hotel brandde af.

So that this would also be correct: Het hotel werd tot de grond toe afgebrand.

Once it's been decided that the sentence is going to be formed in the past tense with the verb separated it'll be correct for the 'af' to go at the end and its collision with toe is only because of that common way of forming 'to the ground = tot de grond toe' (i.e. 'towards' the ground).

[lingohot]

Het hotel brandde tot de grond toe af.

Ik denk dat "tot de grond toe" bij elkar horen omdat het een uitzdrukking is en "af" gewoon een deel van "afbranden" is.

PS: Le Baron has already answered.

[Le Baron]

Ik denk dat "tot de grond toe" bij elkar horen omdat het een uitzdrukking is en "af" gewoon een deel van "afbranden" is..

Je hebt wel gelijk dat het een vaste uitdrukking is.

[tommus]

I agree that it is pretty obvious that it is the combination of a separable verb and a common usage of 'toe'. Easy to read. But my point was: As a non-native Dutch speaker (or even writer), would you ever expect that your mind and your speech would put such a combination together. Even if you did, you might be a bit unsure about it.

[Le Baron]

I agree that it is pretty obvious that it is the combination of a separable verb and a common usage of 'toe'. Easy to read. But my point was: As a non-native Dutch speaker (or even writer), would you ever expect that your mind and your speech would put such a combination together. Even if you did, you might be a bit unsure about it.

I suppose I can only speak for myself and I can say that it 'feels' right when I see/hear it. But it's only because this sentence: het brandde tot de grond toe af is a very fixed way of saying it.

Here's another similar type of sentence: het ging tot nu toe mis (misgaan) = until now it went wrong.

Theoretically you could say: hij kende tot nu toe toe (up until now he conceded) or hij sprak ons tot vervelens toe toe (he harangued us to the point of boredom), het hoorde tot nu toe toe (up to now it belonged)! though I don't know if I'd expect them daily. It does however show the pattern: first part of separable verb > fixed phrasal unit: tot nu toe/tot vervelens toe (or similar e.g. van nu af aan) > separable prefix.

Het gaat van nu af aan mis. = it will go wrong from now on... etc.

[Le Baron]

Marc van Oostendoorp (Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen) on the 'zachte g', which he explains is actually the 'original' sound in Dutch and the 'hard g' a later development. Here in Utrecht lots of older people have a softer g and I was told it was always somewhat softer until after the war.

Interesting is the lack of distinction in the north between e.g. gloor/chloor. This is also true for words starting with 'g' and followed by 'r' where the r can often be subsumed. So that e.g. 'groot' sounds a bit like 'goot', except when the speaker has a really good uvular trill. Only when you get right down and into Belgium is the distinction fully clear with soft g and tongue trill (though some also have an uvular).

[jayjaynowayson]

Hi everyone, anyone ever tried this book (Harrap's méthode intégrale néerlandais 2 CD + livre)?

https://www.amazon.com.be/Harraps-m%C3% ... 165&sr=8-6

I just finished the Assimil "La Pratique du Néerlandais" (Louis Verlee) and I really like it. I am looking for similar things. I do have a version of the assimil 'Le Néerlandais des affaires', but I still did not study it. Any suggestions?