Dutch adjective endings are one of the first real grammar hurdles for English speakers. In English, adjectives never change form: you say "a big house" and "big houses" and "the big house" and the word "big" stays the same throughout. In Dutch, adjectives take endings that depend on the gender of…
The past tense is where Dutch grammar starts to feel more complex — and more rewarding. Dutch has two ways to express the past: the simple past (onvoltooid verleden tijd, or OVT) and the present perfect (voltooid tegenwoordige tijd, or VTT). Unlike English, where the choice between these two is…
Dutch is often described as sitting somewhere between German and English — and that's a fair characterisation of its pronunciation too. English speakers will find many Dutch sounds familiar, but there are key differences: the guttural G, the long and short vowel system, the diphthongs, and the…
Dutch word order has a reputation for being complicated, and there's some truth to that reputation. Unlike English, which has a very fixed SVO (Subject–Verb–Object) structure, Dutch employs a system where the main verb splits from its auxiliaries and infinitives, where subordinate clauses send all…