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Durven, hebben, hoeven, komen
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English version by Bieneke Berendsen :: other languages
These four verbs do not have much in common with each other other than that they are followed by 'te'. The reason why they get their own page is that they could not be categorized anywhere else.

durven to dare hij durft niet in het openbaar te spreken he does not dare to speak in public
hebben to have ik heb vandaag veel te doen I have got a lot to do today
hoeven to need to wij hoeven niet te wachten we do not need to wait
komen to come (to) het komt te vervallen it (will) comes to expire

Durven is a regular verb, hoeven is Internal link partly irregular and Internal link hebben and Internal link komen are completely irregular.

A few notes:
  1. the construction hebben te always means to have to (and has nothing to do with to possess). It is used in combination with a quantity, e.g. "I have a lot to do", "We do not have much to clean", etc.
  2. the verb hoeven can only be used in a Internal link negating sentence (with not, never, nowhere, etc.)
  3. komen te always means to be about to in the sense that something will happen
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