The Dutch Grammar Forum

Adverbs & adjectives
[bijwoorden en bijvoeglijk naamwoorden]
An adjective says something about a noun or person: E.g. "the beautiful story" or "She is happy".
An adverb says something about a verb, an adjective, another adverb, a phrase, or a clause: "You did that well", "That is really nice."

Conjunctions
[voegwoorden]
You can use a conjunction to link words, phrases, and clauses: "I studied for weeks but I passed my exam." "Can you see anything or is it too dark?" "Tell me when you are ready to go." "He is taller than I." "He made notes while[/] the teacher was talking."

Modal particles
[modale partikels]
The Dutch use words like 'nou', 'toch', 'hoor', 'maar', 'wel', 'eens', or 'even' to modify the tone of a sentence. Their only function is to reflect the mood or attitude of the speaker. In spoken Dutch, there is hardly a phrase that does not contain one of these hard-to-explain words.

Nouns & articles
[zelfstandig naamwoorden en lidwoorden]
Here you can ask anything about Dutch articles ('de', 'het', 'een'), how to make plural nouns, how to make nouns small (diminutives), compound nouns, and everything else related to nouns and articles.

Prepositions & postpositions
[voorzetsels]
Do we buy our train tickets 'in' or 'op' the station? Do we ask 'voor' or 'om' informatie?

Pronouns
[voornaamwoorden]
A pronoun replaces a noun or another pronoun. E.g. 'he', 'which', or 'her'. There are different types of pronouns: personal, possessive, indefinite, relative... You can post your questions about Dutch pronouns here.

Spelling & pronunciation
[spelling en uitspraak]
How do you pronounce 'gezellig'? What is the difference between 'eu' and 'ui'? How do you write...? You can use the phonetic keyboard if you are familiar with phonetic symbols.
[Jan. 12, 2008: due to the forum update, the phonetic keyboard has been temporarily disabled.]

Verbs
[werkwoorden]
Regular verbs, irregular verbs, auxiliary verbs, compound verbs... When do we use which tense? What about those strange constructions the Dutch use to make a continuous? "Staat" my book on the shelf or "ligt" it? Ask all about Dutch verbs here.

Vocabulary
[woordenschat]
How do you say daddy-long-legs in Dutch? How many ways are there to say "thank you" or "you're welcome"? Post everything about vocabulary here.

Word order
[woordvolgorde]
According to many, the word order is one of the hardest parts of the Dutch language. If you are also struggling with subordinate clauses, inversion and the like, this is the place to be.