Thread: Crash course [a link]

Chapeau, bad manners! I thought you would have some difficulties with 'wel eventjes wat' and 'moeilijk' (difficult). Like in Russian, we also use a lot of words which have long since lost their original meaning and are now used practically as Russians use their particles.
I ga naar het station.
Nou dan, dan zal ik dus maar weer eens eventjes naar het station toe gaan, of niet soms?
The literal translation would be (only 'well then' makes sense even in English):
Well then, then I shall therefore but again once for a short while go to the station, or not sometimes?

BTW, do you guys confirm that Dutch is OK with simple past/imperfect where German would use present perfect almost exclusively? Is it like English in this regard, where "perfect" does communicate a perfective aspect, or are there yet more twists? Can you use temporal specifications (except "just" or "already" or some such) with present perfect in Dutch?

English: I slept well yesterday.
German: Ich habe gestern gut geschlafen.
Dutch: ?

What I like about Afrikaans is how they can add diminutive suffixes to almost everything - nouns, adjectives, adverbs, verbs, numerals, the lot. Who said Russian was a powerful language in terms of diminutives? Well, here's its rival, Afrikaans. What's the situation in Dutch? I know you can add diminutive suffixes to nouns, what about other parts of speech?

- Pa'tjie, ek wil net enetjie he^.
- Slaapies maar, my skatjie, Klaas Vakie is aan kommetjies, men soentjies eers vir pappie.

Is this cool or what.

@bad manners: I heb goed geslapen. 'Ik sliep goed' can be used in some contexts, but I can't think of any right now.

Originally Posted by Jasper May

@bad manners: I heb goed geslapen. 'Ik sliep goed' can be used in some contexts, but I can't think of any right now.

That does not answer my question. The "yesterday/gestern" part was important (temporal specification as I said). Anyway, in your original "difficult" Dutch example, you used simple past/imperfect, correct? "Garmonistka wrote".

Originally Posted by VendingMachine

What I like about Afrikaans is how they can add diminutive suffixes to almost everything - nouns, adjectives, adverbs, verbs, numerals, the lot. Who said Russian was a powerful language in terms of diminutives? Well, here's its rival, Afrikaans.

Spanish, and, above all, Hungarian. Agglutinations galore.

Originally Posted by bad manners

Originally Posted by VendingMachine

What I like about Afrikaans is how they can add diminutive suffixes to almost everything - nouns, adjectives, adverbs, verbs, numerals, the lot. Who said Russian was a powerful language in terms of diminutives? Well, here's its rival, Afrikaans.

Spanish, and, above all, Hungarian. Agglutinations galore.

No, bad manners, I'm afraid you didn't understand me. I didn't mean agglutinations which denote position, direction, etc. as in, say, Finnish - katu (street), kadulta (from the stree), kadulla (in the street), perhe (family), perheesta:ni (about my family), etc., I was talking about diminutives, which show the speaker's attitude towards things/actions/qualities he's talking about. What makes Afrikaans distinct from quite many a language is that one can actually add such suffixes to almost any part of speech, not just nouns and adjectives. For example, you can add such suffixes to verbs (sleep - slaap - in a neutral kind of way, but you can sleep in a cute and cuddly kind of way by adding a suffix - 'slaapies').

I asked the Dutch people on this forum if Dutch had a mechanism like that too, minding that Afrikaans and Dutch are related more than closely. I don't get it how Spanish and Hungarian enter into this.

Originally Posted by VendingMachine

No, bad manners, I'm afraid you didn't understand me. I didn't mean agglutinations which denote position, direction, [...] I was talking about diminutives, which show the speaker's attitude towards things/actions/qualities he's talking about.

I understood you perfectly well. For Spanish, have a look here: http://spanish.about.com/library/weekly/aa061202a.htm

You can't add a diminutive to a Spanish verb, though.

I don't get it how Spanish and Hungarian enter into this.

It was a remark on your "Who said Russian was a powerful language in terms of diminutives? Well, here's its rival, Afrikaans." There are too many rivals and Afrikaans is not really special. And I think Russian is more powerful in this regard, for it has both prefixes and suffixes. C.f. подъебнуть. The very intensive stem is transformed into something almost infinitesimal. Now make a noun out of it: подъёбка. And, finally, the diminutive suffix: подъёбочка. Or подъебончик. That's the power of diminution for you!

First of all, bad manners, may I suggest you wash out your mouth with some Кря-Кря shampoo? Since when is that kind of language OK on this forum?

You see, I was thinking about English/Dutch/Afrikaans/Russian all along although I admit I did not express myself clearly enough. I apologise for that.

Afrikaans beats many other languages not because it has diminutive suffixes as such for quite many languages have them as you have rightly pointed out, but by the fact that it allows its speakers to add diminutives to verbs which is sooooo cool and I bet it gives its speakers a dimension totally unknown in many other languages. And I'd like to know what the situation is in Dutch, its forefather.

First of all, bad manners, may I suggest you wash out your mouth with some Кря-Кря shampoo? Since when is that kind of language OK on this forum?

You see, I was thinking about English/Dutch/Afrikaans/Russian all along although I admit I did not express myself clearly enough. I apologise for that.

Afrikaans beats many other languages not because it has diminutive suffixes as such for quite many languages have them as you have rightly pointed out, but by the fact that it allows its speakers to add diminutives to verbs which is sooooo cool and I bet it gives its speakers a dimension totally unknown in many other languages. And I'd like to know what the situation is in Dutch, its forefather.

Originally Posted by VendingMachine

First of all, bad manners, may I suggest you wash out your mouth with some Кря-Кря shampoo? Since when is that kind of language OK on this forum?

What language, really? Those words are completely innocent. I think them a lot less offensive than your everlasting "shite".

Afrikaans beats many other languages not because it has diminutive suffixes as such for quite many languages have them as you have rightly pointed out, but by the fact that it allows its speakers to add diminutives to verbs which is sooooo cool and I bet it gives its speakers a dimension totally unknown in many other languages.

Like I said, Russian has that and lots more. Стукнуть - пристукнуть - стукануть. Выспаться - соснуть. I agree, though, that among the Germanic languages, with their very limited means of word transformation, Afrikaans must indeed stand out.

@bad manners: I don't know what you mean. Gisteren sliep ik/gisteren heb ik geslapen. I don't know the grammatical difference, because I use them without thinking.

@VendingMachine: no, we can't diminutivize verbs in Dutch. Maybe it sounds cool to you, but to Dutch ears it just sounds incredibly stupid and childish.

Originally Posted by Jasper May

@VendingMachine: no, we can't diminutivize verbs in Dutch. Maybe it sounds cool to you, but to Dutch ears it just sounds incredibly stupid and childish.

Well, was the question phrased as "How does it sound to the Dutch..."? All I asked was if the Dutch used diminutives with verbs or not. A simple 'no' would have sufficed. Your love-hate relationship with the South Africans is of no interest to me. Obviously, they don't give a toss about how such verbs sound to you. I said that I found it cool the way they added diminutives to verbs in Afrikaans, I never suggested I'd find it equally cool in Dutch.

Originally Posted by Jasper May

@bad manners: I don't know what you mean. Gisteren sliep ik/gisteren heb ik geslapen. I don't know the grammatical difference, because I use them without thinking.

So you can specify time with perfect, like in German. Would it be correct to say that the imperfect form is "too literate" in modern Dutch and most of the times you would use the perfect form? Are there situations when you can only use imperfect (other than of "to be" and "to have")?

Why the hell is Carperdiem on some angling web-site based in Holland? Is that Dutch for Carp Angler or something?

Nope, it's just as awful a pun as your nick: 'karper' means carp.

Hi, a question about the crash course - are there any useful materials in the net except Integral Dutch Course and Goed zo! ?