"Hij denkt dat hij iemand is, maar hij is niemand."
Translation:He thinks he is somebody, but he is nobody.
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Do people use "iemand" and "niemand" in Dutch as they do "somebody" and "nobody" in English to denote someone who is (not) important, successful and the like?
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Yes, but I think it's not used as commonly as in English. Dutch probably loaned this usage from English quite recently, since you also can come across a sentence like: hij is een nobody.
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We don't say "hij is een niemand", though we could say "hij is helemaal niemand", if you mean to offend or insult.
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It's not quite the same. Literally, nietsnut is someone who is useless (nut=use), but it's often used to describe someone who is lazy
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Like Susande said we sometimes use it in Dutch, but I would say phrases like "Hij is een nul" (lit. He's a zero) or "Hij is niks waard" (lit. He's nothing worth) are more common.
You can either include it or exclude it; both work perfectly fine. It's basically just a matter of preference. ^_^
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Why is the first part inverted and the second isn't? Isn't it suppose to be opposite?
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Shortly, when you have dat, the verb goes to the end. It's the opposite with maar (and en, want, etc), these don't make the verb move to the end. Sorry for this brief answer, but I hope you understood ^^
