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Topic: Dutch

"The woman drinks the tea."

Translation:De vrouw drinkt de thee.

4 years ago

8 Comments

https://www.duolingo.com/niscope
niscope
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Why not "het thee"? The noun is ending with an 'e'.

4 years ago
https://www.duolingo.com/Susande
Susande
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In Dutch usually the gender just has to be learned for every word, it can only be derived from the noun and its spelling in a few cases, the final letter is not one of those. So it's not as easy as in Spanish for instance. See the full explanation here.

4 years ago
https://www.duolingo.com/niscope
niscope
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So Dutch relies more on memorization than on rules (see https://www.duolingo.com/skill/dn/Plurals). Thanks Susande for adding this to my list. :P.

4 years ago
https://www.duolingo.com/Susande
Susande
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It depends, you cannot generalise this to the whole language, just because it is the case for two aspects of it.

4 years ago
https://www.duolingo.com/WarmFoothills
WarmFoothills
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It's not really a memorization, it is a feeling. If you make up a Dutch-sounding word, I could tell you if it would have de or het and -en or -s.

4 years ago
https://www.duolingo.com/niscope
niscope
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Learning Dutch, I have also started to get the grasp of the special requirement for such words. Will build on it en-route the learning.

4 years ago
https://www.duolingo.com/Geitenmelker
Geitenmelker
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What is wrong with 'de vrouw drinkt thee'?

4 years ago
https://www.duolingo.com/WarmFoothills
WarmFoothills
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That would be the correct translation for: "The woman drinks tea."

4 years ago
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