Hi there, welcome to no-Nonsense Nederlands, welkom bij no-nonsense Nederlands. Your fifteen minutes of Dutch practice. In this podcast you’ll get to listen to a dialogue, and translate and repeat. A very active and effective kind of practice, which will really help you up your language level.
I speak the Flemish variety of Dutch, which has a different kind of accent than the Dutch one, and some idiosyncrasies, but grammar and vocabulary are the same, so no matter what variety you want to learn, you’re welcome here.
Today we’re going to focus on third person pronouns. In the last two episodes we covered the masculine and then the feminine pronouns, because they’re difficult for a lot of learners, and now we’re going to mix them up. A good way for you to test how well you master them.
So a quick recap: the masculine pronouns are 'hij' for the subject: He eats an appel, hij eet een appel; 'hem' for an object: ik hou van hem, I love him. And 'zijn' for the possessive: zijn bedrijf, his company.
The feminine pronouns are 'zij' for the subject, but we usually say ‘ze’: ze gaat naar school, she’s going to school. ‘Zij’ is used when you want to express a contrast: zij kookt, hij wast af. She cooks, he does the dishes. And then we have the possessive 'haar', as in haar leven, her life. ('Haar' is also used as the object: Hij ziet haar, he sees her.)
Let’s practice with a dialogue. I’ll read through it once in Dutch, then I’ll go over it sentence by sentence, with the English sentence first. Try to translate it right away. After that I’ll give you the correct translation twice for you to repeat.
Stijn and Cristina are getting married!
Stijn en Cristina gaan trouwen!
O really? When?
A ja*? Wanneer? (*Very Flemish :))
This summer, in July.
Deze zomer, in juli.
He asked her to marry him on her birthday.
Hij heeft haar ten huwelijk gevraagd op haar verjaardag.
How nice. Will it be a big party?
Wat leuk. Wordt het een groot feest?
Yes. He’s inviting his entire family.
Ja. Hij nodigt heel zijn familie uit.
Her family lives in Colombia.
Haar familie woont in Colombia.
Only her parents and her sister are coming.
Enkel haar ouders en haar zus komen.
It will be the first time her parents meet his family.
Het wordt de eerste keer dat haar ouders zijn familie ontmoeten.
He wanted to fly in her grandparents too, as a surprise.
Hij wilde haar grootouders ook overvliegen, als verrassing.
But they didn’t want to come, they’re too old.
Maar ze wilden niet, ze zijn te oud.
But all of her coworkers are coming.
Maar al haar collega’s komen wel.
And his friends from the chiro.
En zijn vrienden van de chiro*. (Lots of Flemish kids and teenagers join a jeugdbeweging, a youth movement. They meet on Sundays and do all kinds of activitites. There's chiro, scouts, KSA, KLJ...)
Will it be a fancy wedding, you think?
Wordt het een chique trouw, denk je?
I don’t think so.
Ik denk het niet.
His parents are rich.
Zijn ouders zijn wel rijk.
But they are not fancy people.
Maar Stijn en Cristina zijn geen chique types*. (Flemish dialect term for people, used when you're describing their character.)
She has booked his favorite dj.
Ze heeft zijn favoriete dj al geboekt.
And he is practicing her favorite dance, the tango.
En hij leert haar lievelingsdans*, de tango. (Lievelings- means about the same as favorite, but the feeling is more intense and sweeter.)
Mostly it will be a lot of fun.
Het wordt vooral erg leuk.
Sounds good!
Klinkt goed!
Wish them well from me.
Wens ze veel geluk van mij.
Alright so that was it guys. Congratulations for taking time to practice! In the shownotes you can reread everything, and you’ll find some extra information on typically Flemish ways of saying things.
Thanks for listening! Bye!