Dutch for beginners · Lesson 5.1 · Free time
How was your weekend?
- 30 minutes
After this lesson you can say what you did at the weekend in a few sentences, with when and where. You can follow a short story about someone else's weekend and react to it.
ReviewStep 1
Do you remember?
Three questions about lesson 4.6. Try first, then open the answer.
- You are late for a meeting with a friend. What do you write?
Answer
Sorry, ik ben te laat! Ik ben onderweg. - Complete: Om zeven uur ___ ik op.
Answer
sta. The verb comes second. - Er ___ veel winkels. Is it is or zijn?
Answer
zijn, because there are more shops.
- You are late for a meeting with a friend. What do you write?
ReadStep 2
1. The situation
It is Monday morning. At the bakery you meet Ans, your neighbour. She asks how your weekend was. You tell her what you did on Sunday with Sanne, and she tells you about her grandchildren.
From this lesson on you are learning A2: you can now talk about things that happened.
ListenStep 3
2. Words
Word list Dutch English de bakker, de bakkers the baker, the bakery gisteren yesterday vorige week, vorig weekend last week, last weekend het uitstapje, de uitstapjes the day out, the trip het kasteel, de kastelen the castle het bos, de bossen the wood, the forest de foto, de foto's the photo de pannenkoek, de pannenkoeken the pancake bakken (bakte, heeft gebakken) to bake, to fry spelen to play slapen (sliep, heeft geslapen) to sleep lang long, for a long time moe tired ReadStep 4
5. Saying what you did
hebben + a past participle
To say what you did, Dutch usually uses this form in speech. It is called the perfect tense (het perfectum):
Ik heb gewerkt. I worked. / I have worked. Zondag heb ik gefietst. On Sunday I went cycling. We hebben foto's gemaakt. We took photos. You can use it with gisteren and vorige week. English says "I worked yesterday", not "I have worked yesterday". In Dutch the perfect is normal here: Ik heb gisteren gewerkt.
How to make the participle
Take the stem (the ik-form, lesson 1.2), put ge- in front and -t or -d at the end:
verb stem participle werken werk gewerkt fietsen fiets gefietst maken maak gemaakt spelen speel gespeeld wandelen wandel gewandeld wonen woon gewoond -t or -d? If the stem ends in t, k, f, s, ch or p, you write -t. Otherwise you write -d. Dutch learners remember these letters with the word 't kofschip. You hear no difference: a d at the end sounds like a t.
The participle goes to the end
Ik heb gisteren gewerkt. We hebben veel foto's gemaakt. A common mistake is Ik heb gemaakt foto's. In Dutch the participle waits until the end, like the second verb after willen (lesson 2.5).
zijn + participle: going somewhere
Most verbs use hebben. A few use zijn: gaan, komen, and a verb of moving when you say where to.
- We zijn naar het bos gegaan. (We went to the woods.)
- Linda is met de kinderen gekomen. (Linda came with the children.)
- We hebben gefietst. (We cycled: the activity.)
- We zijn naar een kasteel gefietst. (We cycled to a castle: you say where to.)
English always uses "have". Dutch does not: Ik heb gegaan is wrong.
Some participles are irregular
gaan ik ben gegaan komen ik ben gekomen eten ik heb gegeten bakken ik heb gebakken slapen ik heb geslapen doen ik heb gedaan Learn these as words for now. In lesson 6.4 you learn more of them.
Hoe was je weekend?
Was is "was". Learn Hoe was ...?, Het was leuk and Ik was moe as fixed phrases. More in lesson 6.4.
PractiseStep 5
Try it: which sentence?
Choose the right sentence.
6. Practice
Exercise 1. At the bakery
Think of the conversation. Is it true?
5 questions
Sam had dinner with Ans and Kees on Saturday evening.
Sam went cycling with Sanne on Sunday.
The castle was ten minutes away by bike.
Mark came with his daughter on Sunday.
Ans and the children made pancakes.
Exercise 2. Make the participle
Type the past participle.
ReviewStep 6
Later you will practise this
- In lesson 5.2 you join a running group and say what you did before: Ik heb vroeger gevoetbald.
- In lesson 5.6 you tell Sanne about Ans's party, in the perfect tense.
- In lesson 6.4 you learn more irregular verbs: gezien, gedronken, gelopen.
- After a week you get three quick questions about hebben, zijn and the participle.
Do you remember?
One week after you mark this lesson as Understood, 3 quick questions will be ready for you here.
Dutch for beginners
48 lessons · 8 modules · A1 · A2
You introduce yourself, go shopping, order in a café, find your way, talk about your weekend, travel, see a doctor and start a new job, in Dutch as you hear it in the Netherlands.
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