A reflexive pronoun is used when the subject and object of a sentence are one and the same, e.g. 'I wash myself". The subject is 'I' and the object 'myself' are the same person. The action that I carry out reflects back on to me, I undergo the washing myself. Hence, the word 'reflexive' pronoun.
Each personal pronoun has its own reflexive form. In Dutch, we have a stressed and an unstressed form. Note that we do not use the marked form (with 'zelf') very often. For example, where we use 'myself' in English, we usually use 'me' in Dutch (not 'mezelf').
| English
| Dutch unmarked
| Dutch marked
|
| myself
| me
| mezelf
|
| yourself
| je
| jezelf
|
| yourself
| zich
| uzelf
|
| itself
| zich
| zichzelf
|
| himself
| zich
| zichzelf
|
| herself
| zich
| zichzelf
|
| ourselves
| ons
| onszelf
|
| yourselves
| je
| jezelf
|
| themselves
| zich
| zichzelf
|
Examples
As you can see, there are many reflexive verbs in Dutch that translate to normal (non-reflexive) verbs in English.
| Ik heb me verslapen.
| I overslept
|
| Je herinnert je dat toch wel?
| You do recall that, don't you?
|
| U kunt zich hier inschrijven.
| You can register yourself here.
|
| Het heeft zich verstopt.
| It has hidden itself.
|
| Hij liet zich meeslepen.
| He let himself get carried away..
|
| Ze nam zich voor met roken te stoppen.
| She decided/intended to quit smoking.
|
| We geven ons over.
| We surrender ourselves.
|
| Jullie verveelden je zeker niet.
| You (plural) probably were not bored
|
| Ze ergerden zich aan het lawaai.
| They were annoyed by the noise.
|
Examples of marked reflexive pronouns
We use the marked form if the object is not really expected to be the same as the subject:
| Ik heb mezelf geknipt.
| I cut my own hair (not someone else's, nor did someone else cut my hair).
|
| Hij heeft zichzelf genezen
| He cured himself (the doctor did not cure him).
|
| We snijden onszelf in de vingers
| We cut ourselves in the fingers (we are working against our own interests)
|
Zelf in combination with non-reflexive verbs
For verbs that are not reflexive, we can also use zelf to emphasize that it was the subject himself who did it. In this case, we leave out the reflexive pronoun (me, je, zich, etc.) and simply say zelf.
| Ik heb het zelf gezien.
| I have seen it myself (with my own eyes).
|
| Hij heeft zelf geneeskunde gestudeerd.
| He has studied medicine himself.
|
| We zullen de taart zelf snijden.
| We will cut the pie ourselves.
|
Questions? 
