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- "I am from Belgium."
"I am from Belgium."
Translation:Ik kom uit België.
16 Comments
It's just not the way we speak. We say, "I come from Belgium" rather than, "I am from Belgium". On the other hand, you can say, "Ik ben hier niet bekend" which means, "I'm not from here" although literally it means, "I am not known here", so there are some weird exceptions. If you did say "Ik ben van Belgie" your listeners would be waiting for you to finish the sentence with something like 'gekomen' which would imply that you had just traveled there and had recently returned, rather than being a Belgian citizen.
435
So, can I understand that "ben" in that sentence would be an auxiliary verb, like in French "Je suis venue de la Belgique" and you just would not say it "Ik heb vanaf Spanien gekomt", nor "Ik ben vanaf Spanien"?
738
Yes, but since 1830 a lot of words and sentences has changed. I am a Belgium and we say: Ik ben van Belgie. People in the Netherlands do not say so.