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- Topic: Dutch >
- "Ik drink geen oude melk."
29 Comments
Hmmm It's so interesting how Dutch is somewhat related to 17th century English.
Just a random observation....
I drink not wine - (modern day English) I don't drink wine.
By the way I got "I drink not wine" from something old that I found on Google.
Ik drink geen wijn - is probably still the way to say ( I don't drink wine) iin Dutch if I'm not mistaken.
Can any Dutch speaker confirm this? Lol and sorry for using wine as the example. I know it's totally off topic.
Similar. And also some words like "will" in german or "wil" in dutch.I read an old English poem in which there is "The mariner hath his will", where it also means "to want" or "command". These are starting to amaze me!
Only for indefinite het woorden, so for a het woord with een in front the -e is not added to the adjectives. For all definite words and all de woorden the -e is added.
- de oude man
- een oude man
- het oude huis
- een oud huis
See full explanation here.
39
The noun is "woord" (singular), and "woorden" (plural). The vowel is "oo", a long/open vowel. As two consonants follow the vowel, it has to be written with double o, as otherwise you'd get a single "o", followed by more than one consonant, thus a short/closed vowel.
I could be wrong but I think that if you negating a non-specific thing, you use geen. If you are negating a specific thing, use niet. E.g. Ik drink geem wijn = I don't drink wine in general. Ik drink de wijn niet. = I don't drink the wine (which is right there).
- 39
No, you're not. Since milk, different from cheese, doesn't have a ripening stage, it's normally either "vers" (fresh) or "bedorven" (off/spoiled). There's no such thing as "oude melk" (old milk).
I'm assuming it means "old" as in "out of date"? That's why I wrote sour, but it wasn't accepted.
I thought it said something like "I gladly drink old milk" due to confusion between dutch (geen) and german (gern).
- 39
Nothing. It's possible to construct the sentence but it has no meaning. Since milk has no ripening, it can't be old. It's either "fresh" or "spoiled". The references in the comments are about spoiled milk, milk that has gone bad.
- 39
Actually, it says "geen", which functions as both an indefinite article and a negation. Since there's no such thing as "oude melk" (old milk), anything can be said about it. Sergii just translates "geen" slightly differently.
Let's switch to a drink that can indeed ripen. E.g.: Whisky/Whiskey. "Ik drink geen oude whisky". Now "I don't drink old whiskey." makes sense: When I drink whisky I always drink the entire bottle. But "I don't drink an old whiskey." could make sense too: I don't buy whisky that's more then 10 years old, as I don't like the tastes.
In the end, "Ik drink geen oude melk." is an interesting piece of logic. I'm not sure negating the impossible is worth the bother for those just trying to learn Dutch, though.
