11 Comments
I am Dutch and I don't think I have heard anyone use this sentence to ask someone's age. Except perhaps with a very strong French acccent. Much more natural would be:
"❤❤❤ oud ben je/jij?" - How old are you?
"Wat is je/jouw leeftijd?" - What is your age?
Maybe in this imaginary situation the person asking the question is holding up a list of ages for the answerer to choose from
If that's the intention, then the translation should be more like "Which is your age?"
But every now and again you may want to say hello to shoes or juice in Dutch, or maybe even compliment someone on how good their dog tastes. You never know.
I don't understand conjugating hebben. It seems like sometimes it's "jij heb" and sometimes it's "jij hebt". Is there a rule for when to use which?
If jij follows the verb (as is the case here), then the verb uses the ik-form, the one without the -t. This switching of the word order happens in certain constructions, most notably in questions.
Ah, thanks. Does that only happen with the je/jij conjugation? Is it exclusive to hebben, or does the rule apply for other verbs? And is there any reason behind it, or it is just a quirk of the language?
This happens only with the je/jij conjugation, but it works like that for all verbs. If there is a reason behind it, I have no idea what it is! :)
My answer was: "What age do you have?" this was not correct according to duolingo. It sound like a literal translation but is not correct. Why? I know people do not say these sentences in English , but also the Dutch sentence is uncommon in the netherlands so it is actually a very good ranslation of a uncommon sentence
