Sometimes you have to use special words to indicate a certain construction. For example: if we put a word before another word to indicate a certain characteristic (I saw a red cat), then it is important to indicate such a word with a special term. In this example this term is: adjective
Word order
We see how different the word order in different languages can be. There is a strong resemble between the Dutch and English. Turkish differs from Dutch and English because the expression "I see" is at the end of the sentence.
Then we see Arabic. Notice that the Arabic language is read from right to left.
I see 1 red cat
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Nouns
Nouns are words for objects, places, ideas and "things". Here we see several examples of nouns.
cat car airplane house
table chair window tree
idea I air dream
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Personal pronouns
This is a special category of nouns. These nouns refer to words like I, you, he, she, we and they.
I you he she you(polite)
we you (plural) they
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Verbs
Verbs refer to an action "something a person is doing". Sometimes we draw actions with a circle (not always!). In Dutch the personal pronoun and the verb are always seperate words. In some languages this combination is given by one word.
see hear look smell
shop have walk cycle
eat drink carpenter sing
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Personal pronouns
The spelling of a verb is coupled to the personal pronoun and time. There are so-called regular verbs that follow strict rules and irregular verbs that don't follow rules. This makes Dutch difficult especially for people who are used to a language were verbs are treated differently
I walk in Amsterdam you walk he walks
we walk they walk
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Personal pronouns
Adjectives tell us more about a noun, like a red cat. In this sentence "red" is information on "cat".
I see a red cat
I have a dirty glass
Notice that in Dutch and English the adjective comes before the noun. This is not the case in any language. Therefor our picture-language is especially important to learn word order!
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Adverbs
These words tell something about the verb.
1 she sings beautifully
2 he plays football strongly
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prepositions referring to place
Here we see how prepositions are given by means of a symbol. All symbols refer to place.
Prepositions are words that show the relationship between a noun (or pronoun) and other parts of a sentence. They can indicate place (like "at," "in," "on"), time (like "before," "after"), direction (like "to," "from"), and many other relationships. Prepositions are essential for building sentences because they help us understand how different elements of a sentence are connected. For example, in the sentence "The book is on the table," the preposition "on" tells us the relationship between the book and the table.
The picture shows only relations with respect to place.
op in naast voor achter boven onder
Conjunctions
As an example we show the word "and". This word is indicated in our picture language with the symbol +
These words are called "conjunctions". The examples shows the word "and" as a word to couple two sentences.
she is happy and he is angry
the bird is gray and the grass is green
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Personal pronouns
he part of the sentence that tells who or what the sentence is about. Usually, it's a noun or pronoun. Example: The box was empty. The objects in our examples are given in a red circle.
the box is empty
the bowl is full
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The so-called "direct object" in a sentence is a noun or pronoun that receives the action of the verb. It answers the question "what?" or "whom?" in relation to this verb. For instance if you say "Ans buys a dress" Dress is the direct object as it is the answer to the question "What does Ans buy?".
1 Ans buy a dress
2 Donald mows the grass
Next we give a survey of the most important categories. Just read it. Some categories are already explained.
the numbers refer to the terms in the survey
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1. Noun: A word for a person, place, thing, or idea. Like "T-shirt", "cat", "park", "ball", or "happiness".
3. Before a noun ("lidwoord"): A word like: the or a/an: like the tree and a tree.
2. Verb: A word that indicates an action or a certain state. It tells what the noun is doing. Like "I love", "I run", "I am" or "I have".
3. Adjective: A word that describes a characteristic of a noun. It tells us more about a noun, like what it looks like, how it feels, or how many. Examples are "a big cat", "a blue sky".
4. Adverb: A word that often indicates: how, when, where, or how much. Examples include "quickly", "very", "tomorrow", or "almost".
5. Personal Pronoun: Words like; I, you, he, she, we and they.
6. Preposition: A word that shows the relationship between a noun (or pronoun) and other words in a sentence. It often tells us where something is or when something happens. Examples are; "the dog is in the garden", "the girl sits on a chair".
7. Conjunction: A word that joins words, phrases, or sentences together. Like: it was a man and he was old
8. Sentence: A group of words that express a complete thought. It starts with a capital letter and ends with a period (.), question mark (?), or exclamation mark (!).
9. Subject: The part of the sentence that tells who or what the sentence is about. Usually, it's a noun or pronoun. Example: The box was empty.
10. The object "lijdend voorwerp") : The so called "direct object" in a sentence is a noun or pronoun that receives the action of the verb. It answers the question "what?" or "whom?" in relation to this verb. For instance if you say "I love Amsterdam" Amsterdam is the direct object as it is the answer to the question "what do you love?".
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