Kun je help over een zin

[Shazzy]

Hallo

Ik heb een vragen over een zin....

Ik schrif dit zin.....

Dit les doet me meer dan 12 uren. (I am trying to say this lesson took over 12 hours - is it correct?

Groetjes

Shazzy

[Joke]

Kun je helpen over met een zin?

Ik heb een vraag over een zin....

Ik schrijf/schreef deze zin.....

Deze les doet kostte me meer dan 12 uur. (I am trying to say this lesson took over 12 hours - is it correct?)

If you want to use a form of doen, you can also say it like this:
"Ik heb meer dan 12 uur over deze les gedaan."

We don't use the word uur (or jaar, keer or kwartier) in plural after a number.
Ik woon al 29 jaar in Nederland.
De volgende trein komt over drie kwartier.
Je mag het drie keer proberen.
I don't know why, and I also don't know why we do use the plural of other time words like minuten, seconden, weken en maanden.
The only thing those four words have in common is that they end in -r. I don't think this is the reason for this strange behavior, but it might help you in remembering them.

See my recent answer on a post by mor for the correct use of deze, die, dit and dat.

[Shazzy]

Bedankt Joke

Some of these things I should not have not wrong and get angry with myself when I do I know that you use deze for de words and dit for het words so why do I still make such silly mistakes..... I will print this information out and put it in my file. I think I need to do more simple exercises to practice these in between other things.
In fact just been going through some more of your lessons you wrote up to number 6 now and i think they are fantastic. You must have worked so hard on them. Lesson 6 made me think as willen, mogen and kunnen can be tricky verbs but I got most of them right The pronouns is another hard exercise to get right. I am working through your lessons inbetween other things and then will try out some of the exericses on this site as well. "er" and "wel" and "nog" are more complicated things to get my head around. Slowly I am getting there. Wth my current teacher all correspondence has to be in Dutch so although hard it will improve my writing I am sure.

Bedankt
Shazzy

[Vilmos]

In Vlaanderen zeggen ze wel vaak maand in plaats van maanden, maar ik weet niet of dat altijd gebeurt en waarom.

[Bert]

In Vlaanderen zeggen ze wel vaak maand in plaats van maanden, maar ik weet niet of dat altijd gebeurt en waarom.

Ze denken dat maand op een R eindigt.

[ngonyama]

Bedankt Joke

Some of these things I should not have not wrong and get angry with myself when I do I know that you use deze for de words and dit for het words so why do I still make such silly mistakes..... I will print this information out and put it in my file. I think I need to do more simple exercises to practice these in between other things.
In fact just been going through some more of your lessons you wrote up to number 6 now and i think they are fantastic. You must have worked so hard on them. Lesson 6 made me think as willen, mogen and kunnen can be tricky verbs but I got most of them right The pronouns is another hard exercise to get right. I am working through your lessons inbetween other things and then will try out some of the exericses on this site as well. "er" and "wel" and "nog" are more complicated things to get my head around. Slowly I am getting there. Wth my current teacher all correspondence has to be in Dutch so although hard it will improve my writing I am sure.

Bedankt
Shazzy

Yeah, I can imagine that this little "er" is a big stumbling block..

There are two main usages:

1) As replacement of the pronoun "it" in pronominal abverbs like erover, erbij etc. that can split up: "er niet over". There is a fine chapter about that here, but I am sure it takes exercise
2) To initiate sentences of a general, impersonal nature, like "er is koffie". (There is coffee). Such sentences are more common in Dutch like
"Er blaft een hond" - There's a dog barking. Here English at least has an equivalent, but strangely only in the continuous tenses, something like "There barks a dog" raises many an eyebrow.
"Er heeft geen hond geblaft" - ehm, literally "There has not barked a dog" Something like "There hasn't been a dog that barked" or so?

Even worse are impersonal passives:
"Er wordt music gespeeld" - There is music being played(?)
"Er werd geblaft" -- There was (some dog) barking (??). Barking was taking place(??). English will resort to: Some dog was barking, but the Dutch does not even mention the dog...

What I'm trying to say is that you cannot just 'learn the word "er".' You need to master its grammatical usage and that is hard.
And yes there are some more usages than the two above, but if could master these two, you'd come a long way.

[Shazzy]

Bdeankt Ngonyama

This has been most helpful and I am sure there is more on this grammar site somewhere I am sure. I will also look back at other exercises and perhaps when time allows try writing something with "Er" in it pehraps some sentences etc. I know you will always be there with your little red pen to gude me.
The NTI course is challenging and teaching me so much already..... I have so many things I want to do but not enough hours in the day . Lasts weeks lesson for NTI took me over 12 hours..... so there was not so much time for anything else. This week I hope will be a little quicker (perhaps). I like to put a lot of effort into my lessons and learn as much from them as possible. As all the instructions are in Dutch and I have to correspond with my teacher in Dutch only it takes quite a long time but I will get there. Thanks for all your support and help.

I will print all this information out and keep in in my file.

Shazzy

[Joke]

The information about 'er' on this website is in the 'word order' chapter:
http://www.dutchgrammar.com/en/?n=WordOrder.36

[Shazzy]

Bedankt Joke voor de link

Ik heb de pagina's uitdraai maken

Is this correct? I was trying to say I have printed the pages out?


Shazzy

[Vilmos]

Ik heb de pagina's uitgeprint is de juiste vertaling (uitprinten, ik print uit, jij print uit, uitgeprint).

[Shazzy]

bedankt Vilmos

Shazzy