LESSON NOTES

Learn Dutch in Three Minutes #15

Going Without in the Netherlands

CONTENTS
2 Grammar

# 15
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GRAMMAR

The focus of this lesson is negative sentences in Dutch

Topic 1: How to use the verb "to be" and "to have" in negative forms

Sentence from the lesson:

Nee, ik ben nog niet klaar.
"No, I'm not ready yet."

1. Imagine you are about to go to a party with a Dutch friend. You ask him if he's ready,
and he answers Nee, ik ben nog niet klaar. "No, I'm not ready yet." Then, you ask him
if he has a car to use to go to the party and he says Nee, ik heb geen auto. "No, I
don't have a car."
In the first sentence, with zijn, "to be," the word niet is used to make the sentence
negative.
In the second sentence, with hebben, "to have," the word geen is used to make the
sentence negative.

2. Let's have a look at the way to switch from affirmative to negative. First with the verb
zijn. If your friend *were* ready, he would say Ik ben klaar, "I am ready." But he
actually said Nee, ik ben nog niet klaar, "No, I am not ready yet." So basically, you
just have to put the word niet after the verb to make it negative.

3. Let's look at an example with the verb hebben, "to have"—"I have a car" is Ik heb een
auto, and "I don't have a car" is Ik heb geen auto. So to make the sentence negative,
you have to put the word geen after the verb. But be careful, this is a little different
from the affirmative version. In the negative sentence, the article een should be left
out.

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4. How would you say "I don't like this restaurant?" For reference, "I like this restaurant"
is Ik hou van dit restaurant. To make the sentence negative, put niet after hou.
Ik hou niet van dit restaurant.
"I don't like this restaurant."
So now you can turn many sentences into their negative form just by adding this little
word niet after the verb. When you use the verb hebben, "to have," you use the word
geen.

Language Tip

If you want to answer negatively but without being too direct, you can add the word echt after
niet. This will mean "I don't really..." So if you want to say "I don't really like fish," it will be Ik
hou niet echt van vis.

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