Oosterhoff Jenneke A. - Basic Dutch: a grammar and workbook

Basic Dutch: A Grammar and Workbook comprises an accessible reference grammar and related exercises in a single volume.

This workbook presents 25 individual grammar points in realistic contexts, providing a grammatical approach which will allow students not already familiar with these structures to become accustomed to their use. Grammar points are followed by examples and exercises designed to reinforce and consolidate students learning.

Suitable for class use or self-study, Basic Dutch introduces Dutch culture and people through the medium of the language used today, providing students with the basic tools to express themselves in a wide variety of situations.

Features include:

• useful exercises and full answer key
• grammar tables for easy reference
• frequent comparative references to English grammar
• appendix of irregular verbs
• index of grammatical terms.

Jenneke A. Oosterhoff is Senior Lecturer in the Department of German, Scandinavian and Dutch at the University of Minnesota.

Other titles available in the Grammar Workbooks series are:

• Basic Cantonese
• Intermediate Cantonese

• Basic Chinese
• Intermediate Chinese

• Intermediate Dutch

• Basic German
• Intermediate German

• Basic Irish
• Intermediate Irish

• Basic Italian

• Basic Korean
• Intermediate Korean (forthcoming)

• Basic Polish
• Intermediate Polish

• Basic Russian
• Intermediate Russian

• Basic Spanish
• Intermediate Spanish

• Basic Welsh
• Intermediate Welsh

This book is a basic Dutch reference grammar with exercises for absolute beginners or learners who want to refine their knowledge of grammatical structures. Each unit presents a grammatical topic with an introduction and where necessary an overview in a table, followed by clear and concise explanations in English and ending with a series of contextualized exercises. The explanations are illustrated by examples in Dutch, and some images are included to provide a more humorous context.

This basic grammar workbook is suitable for independent learning as well as for classroom use. Its contents cover the materials typical for first-year curriculum Dutch as a foreign language taught at university level. Using vocabulary associated with topics featured in typical first-year Dutch language textbooks, it can accompany any such textbook used in classroom language instruction.

This is strictly a grammar book. It doesnt include a chapter on pronunciation, because the internet provides numerous examples on this topic, including audio files. This book, however, provides clear explanations of grammatical terms, contrasted with examples in English, and it gives special attention to grammatical aspects of spelling.

Language is best learned and practiced in context. Sample sentences and exercises in traditional grammar books often lack such context. Most examples and exercises in this book, however, are written in context, using an imaginary Dutch family of four and their circle of friends and neighbors to provide a situational context. The exercises teach the learner to first recognize the grammar structure and then apply it in more complex forms. For classroom purposes, some speaking exercises suitable for group work are also included. For immediate feedback, a key to the exercises is provided at the back of this book.

For help in writing this grammar workbook, I have consulted many excellent reference grammars and other Dutch grammar workbooks, first and foremost the Algemene Nederlandse Spraakkunst (Martinus Nijhoff, 1997), but also works such as Dutch: An Essential Grammar (Routledge, 2002), De Regels van het Nederlands (Wolters Noordhoff, 1994) and Nederlandse Grammatica voor Anderstaligen (Utrecht, 1985). I am indebted to the people at taaladvies.net for sending me quick and helpful answers to complex grammatical questions. I specially thank Wijnie de Groot and Alice van Kalsbeek for constructive comments and moral support along the way, and I am most grateful to my students Heidi Raatz and Julia Belgum for proofreading my chapters and asking me exactly the right questions. Many thanks also to Ari Hoptman for providing the images to underline the grammar with good laughs, and, lastly, I want to thank the College of Liberal Arts at the University of Minnesota for granting me a leave of absence to finish this project.

Jenneke A. Oosterhoff
St. Paul, July 2008

Two basic elements of a grammatical sentence are a subject and a verb: Ik ga I go, Jij eet You eat, Peter werkt Peter works, We spelen We play. This first chapter, therefore, is an introduction to the subject forms of the personal pronoun and verbs in the present tense.

The chapter includes a section on spelling in verb conjugation.