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- "Als jij hem niet hebt, waar …
"Als jij hem niet hebt, waar is de tas dan?"
Translation:If you do not have it, then where is the bag?
64 Comments
The uses of the object personal pronouns
When it comes to referring to things, ideas or inanimate objects, we use het and hem. Again, when the word concerned is a het word, we use het. When it is a de word, we use hem.
I copied this from the full grammar explanation here
Yes, that's the correct way to do it for feminine nouns. However since there usually is no difference between masculine and feminine nouns in Dutch (both use de), lots of native speakers (myself included) will usually make lots of mistakes, because they don't know which nouns are masculine and which are feminine. For this reason I personally try to avoid these sentences. Some examples:
- het kabinet en zijn ministers (het is neuter, so it uses zijn)
- de stad en haar inwoners
- Amsterdam en zijn inwoners
- de spreker en zijn/haar publiek (depends on the gender of the speaker)
- de bioscoop en zijn publiek
- de bloem en haar blaadjes
2112
Would it have been incorrect to say "Als jij het niet hebt" in this case, or are both terms acceptable?
136
tas = bag
tasje = handbag
The word "tasje" is neuter (all words ending in -je are neuter), so "het" is used to mean "it" when referring to it.
So "het or hem" is the reason they say Dutch lost most of the feminine gender a while ago. Not as simple as English, but I guess easier than most other European languages.
If I said "De zon was de hele dag tussen wolken, maar wanneer ik heel verdrietig werd, zag ik haar weer en haar vreugd raakte mijn ziel aan", would that be wrong?
136
No, it should not be accepted. Take another look at the original Dutch sentence. In the main clause it mentions "de tas", which you must translate as "the bag", not as "it"!
You could rewrite the sentence (in both English and Dutch) to first mention the bag in the opening clause: "If you do not have the bag, then where is it." But that is not the sentence we are given here.
136
In the main clause, the second element must be the verb. In the sentence we are given here, the first element of the main clause is the question word "waar". So the first two elements must be "waar is".
So your suggestion -- "dan waar" -- does not work.
103
You are so patient to explain the same grammar rule to all users who came up with the same question, I benifit a lot by reading your comments. It's so nice of you, please have some lingots.
1667
I had trouble hearing the audio and thought the speaker was saying 'dom', not 'dan'. Which, kinda makes sense if you are being rude to someone.
522
Bumping moparmike's question. Why isn't "Als jij hem niet hebt, dan waar is de tas" correct?
136
In the main clause, the verb must be the second element. In the sentence you suggest, we have, counting from the start of the main clause, dan = 1, waar = 2, is = 3. So that is wrong, as V2 is required in the main clause here.
236
You're right that the verb is always second in a sentence, but this sentence has 2 clauses, and the first part, the subordinate clause "als jij hem niet hebt", is considered the first piece. The verb should follow next in the sentence, as in the sentence "als jij hem niet hebt, zal ik Martijn bellen" but it doesn't. Seems to me that's because the main clause is a question, so the question word has to appear after our subclause followed by the verb. This forces "dan" to the end of the sentence. I'm not a grammar expert but it seems more like that's the situation here.
136
Eric, were you replying to me? I agree with much of what you say. But note that I said above that the verb must be the second element "in the main clause". I did NOT say the verb must be the second element in the sentence.
You are right that the first element in the entire DL sentence here is a subclause. But looking just at the main clause, the first element is a question word (waar) and the second element is the verb "is". In my reply to Doug, I was counting from the beginning of the main clause.
And of course the V2 rule does not apply even to all "main clauses" It is a rule of thumb that applies to ordinary declarative clauses, not necessarily to questions or exclamations.
191
Could the phrase be 'waar dan is de tas?' This seems more natural to me, and honours the V2 rule. And thank you for the brilliant ex[lanations from various contributors.
136
Hi Amir. What you are asking is better expressed as follows: "If a subordinate clause comes at the beginning of the sentence, the word order in the main clause changes so that subject and verb switch places."
The answer to your question is:
1. If the main clause is a question that includes a question word (such as "when", "where", etc), then the main clause begins with the question word, and the finite verb comes second. (That is what is happening in the DL sentence at the top of this page).
2. If the main clause is a question that does not include a question word (that is, if the main clause is a yes/no question), then the word order is the same as if the main clause were a declarative sentence. That is, the verb comes first in the clause. For example: "Als jij hem niet hebt, is de tas verloren?" Notice that in this case, it is only intonation that distinguishes the question from a declarative statement:
Als jij hem niet hebt, is de tas verloren? = If you do not have it, is the bag lost?
Als jij hem niet hebt, is de tas verloren. = if you do not have it, the bag is lost.
136
Artur, your proposed sentence is not the best translation of the Dutch we are actually given. In the Dutch we are given, the "it" is mentioned first, and "the bag" second. It is possible to form a similar grammatical English sentence with the same pattern, so that is the most faithful way to translate. (You might want to argue that the Dutch sentence itself would be better if it had reversed the two terms in the first place, but that is a different story.)
136
Karl, the sentence you propose mentions the bag first, then later refers to the bag as "it". But in the Dutch we are given the "it" is mentioned first, and the bag later. That is the pattern you should follow in your English translation.
Yes, the two different patterns mean almost exactly the same thing. But only one is the pattern we are actually given, and that is how you should translate. Your proposed English would be correct only if we were given the other pattern in the original Dutch.
Duo usually allows a reversal of grammar when one form is more common in one language, and the other, in the other language. In English, if you have not introduced the referent, it's rare to use "it"; and if you have introduced the referent (in a hypothetical prior sentence) you'd use "it" a second time.
Dutch seems freer in that regard (and actually, so does older / literary english). That grammar pattern is one of the very subtle "tells" that a person speaking otherwise excellent english is actually dutch.
Duo should accept the more idiomatic answer, not only the grammatically closest translation.
136
Lilly, it is true that you can say either. But only one is the correct translation of the sentence that we are in fact given.