The Dutch Grammar Forum

Hello,

I am a native English speaker who is learning Dutch. While reading (very slowly, mind you) De Da Vinci Code, I came across the line "Ik ben aan vakantie toe." At first, the line didn't bother me, until I came to discover that the line meant "I need a vacation," as opposed to "I am on vacation," or some variant thereof.

After that, I went on a fruitless search to figure out what "toe" meant. Why was it so special? How could this one word change the whole meaning of the sentince? After asking several native speakers, they all said "'Toe' doesn't really mean anything in English." A dead-end. No answers to be found anywhere.

So, the questions I pose to you are, what is "toe," and how and when do you use it?

Thank you.

harrisonhunt wrote:Hello,

I am a native English speaker who is learning Dutch.  While reading (very slowly, mind you) De Da Vinci Code, I came across the line "Ik ben aan vakantie toe."  At first, the line didn't bother me, until I came to discover that the line meant "I need a vacation," as opposed to "I am on vacation," or some variant thereof.

After that, I went on a fruitless search to figure out what "toe" meant.  Why was it so special? How could this one word change the whole meaning of the sentince?  After asking several native speakers, they all said "'Toe' doesn't really mean anything in English."   A dead-end.  No answers to be found anywhere.

So, the questions I pose to you are, what is "toe," and how and when do you use it?

Thank you.

Hm. It has several meanings... let's see.

1) Stand alone ("Toe!" or "Toe nou!"), it's basically a way of pleading... you could hear kids saying that the way English-speaking kids would say "pleeeeeeeeeeease?", though in a more mature way it can be used by adults too.

2) Part of the separable verb "toegeven", which means "to give in", or, more frequently, "to admit". So you would see sentences with "ik geef toe dat..."

3) The way it's used in your sentence: "ergens aan toe zijn", which I guess I would indeed translate by "to be in need of something", but it's a bit more complicated than that... essentially it means something like "(I've worked a lot the past months and now) I need vacation", i.e. there's an implication of time, an implication of needing something or wanting something because you think you deserve it because of what happened in the recent past.

4) Sort of a preposition, as in "op iemand toe lopen" or as in the compound words "toeloop", "toestroom", "toegift" (from "toegeven" as mentioned above), etc.

5) In combination with "tot", the combination indicating... hmmm, how to explain that.  For instance, "tot driemaal toe", which translates to something like "no less than three times".

And there might be more.

Maybe you should just keep it simple: "toe zijn aan" means something like "nodig hebben" ("to need"). A phrase like "ik ben aan vakantie toe" thus means "I need a vacation" but should more or less be interpreted as "I arrived at a point in time where I need a vacation to relax or to recharge". "Toe zijn aan" is just an expression .

This made me think of the English expression "to be up to something". There is no literal translation in Dutch. 'Up' on its own doesn't really mean anything in this sentence. The same can be said of "toe".

Ah, this all makes sense now.  I had no idea that toe- was part of a separable verb construction.

To clarify, take the following sentince:

Roken brengt u en anderen rondom u ernstige schade toe.
(Obviously, and most unfortunately, I smoke)

Toe, then, is part of the separable verb toebrengen?

Thanks!

harrisonhunt wrote:Ah, this all makes sense now.  I had no idea that toe- was part of a separable verb construction.

To clarify, take the following sentince:

Roken brengt u en anderen rondom u ernstige schade toe.
(Obviously, and most unfortunately, I smoke)

Toe, then, is part of the separable verb toebrengen?

Thanks!

Indeed it is. To inflict, as I'm sure you guessed already.

Uitstekend!

Thanks for all your help.

There is a slight difference between "toebrengen" en "toe zijn aan". "Toebrengen" as you can see is written as one verb but "toe zijn aan" is more like an expression. The former "toe" is like a preposition but the latter isn't. Therefor I don't think "toe zijn (aan)" qualifies as a separable verb.

Roland wrote:There is a slight difference between "toebrengen" en "toe zijn aan". "Toebrengen" as you can see is written as one verb but "toe zijn aan" is more like an expression. The former "toe" is like a preposition but the latter isn't. Therefor I don't think "toe zijn (aan)" qualifies as a separable verb.

Er, whoops. You are right, of course... not a separable verb at all. I guess I must've missed that part of his post.

Ah, that also explains why I could not find toezijn in the dictionary.