Lesson 7 - Ga je mee?
| Intro |
This lesson teaches you how to invite someone to go out and how to respond to an invitation. Furthermore, you'll be introduced to the past and perfect tense (both regular and irregular) and to seperable verbs. |
If you feel like going out and you like to invite someone to come along, there are a few phrases you could use:
Text 7.1 - Zullen we ... Zullen we naar de bioscoop gaan? 
Ga je mee naar het theater? Ga je mee iets drinken? Heb je zin om naar een concert te gaan? Laten we vanavond uitgaan.
You can translate Zullen we bij 'Shall we...' and Laten we... by 'Let's...', but the other phrases are a bit more difficult.
Ga je mee translated word by word would be 'Go you along'. If it's combined with an activity in the form of a verb, the verb is simply the infinitive and you do not need a preposition. This results in a type of phrase you hear a lot in Dutch, for the Dutch make verbs out of a lot of activities. This often surprises English speakers. For example, inviting someone to go and play tennis, have lunch or enjoy a picknick would be:
- Ga je mee tennissen?
- Ga je mee lunchen?
- Ga je mee picknicken?
If someone invites you like this and you can't accept, you could simply say ik kan niet ('I can't') or Nee, sorry, ik moet... ('No, sorry, I have to ...') and pick whatever you need:
- ... mijn haar wassen
- ... naar de Nederlandse les
- ... babysitten
- ... huiswerk maken
- ... vroeg naar bed
- ... naar de verjaardag van mijn tante
Of course, you can also accept an invitation, for example with an enthousiastic 'Ja, leuk!', 'Graag' or 'Doen we!'.
Here's a complete conversation on this theme:
Text 7.2 - Naar de film Heb je zin om naar de film te gaan? Welke film? Die nieuwe film van Paul Verhoeven. Ja, leuk! Wanneer? Morgenavond? Nee, sorry, morgenavond kan ik niet. Zaterdagavond dan misschien? Even kijken ... ja, dan kan ik wel. Goed! Hoe laat spreken we af? Om 8 uur? Prima. Waar? Bij café Helmers? Goed. Afgesproken. Zal ik kaartjes reserveren? Ja, doe jij dat maar.
The word Afgesproken ('agreed') is the past participle of an irregular and seperable verb. This looks like a lot of grammar, but it still fits in one chapter: below here, all this is going to be explained.
On 'talking about the past': you can do this in Dutch like you can do it in English: by using the past tense and by using the perfect tense. And the verbs you use for this can be regular or irregular.
First the regular ones. For finding the right form for these, you use the first person singular in present (mostly the infinitive form without -en). So for fietsen, you take fiets and for rennen you take ren (see the previous chapter for remarks on double vocals or consonants and on what happens to -v- and -z-).
And this is what happens to these verbs in the past (yellow) and perfect (blue) tense:
Text 7.3 - Past and perfect
- regular verbs
infinitive fietsen rennen ik fietste rende jij fietste rende u fietste rende hij/zij/het fietste rende wij fietsten renden jullie fietsten renden zij fietsten renden ik heb / ben gefietst ik heb / ben gerend
So, the verb fietsen gets -de(n) for the past and ge- plus -d for the perfect tense, while rennen gets -te(n) for the past and ge- plus -t for the perfect tense. The thing that happens to fietsen happens to all the regular verbs that end on -t, -k, -f, -s, -ch and -p when the -en is taken of the infinitive (to remember these, the Dutch use the word 't kofschip and what happens to rennen, happens to the rest of the verbs.
The form of the verb used in the perfect tense is called the past participle. This form - used together with hebben, zijn or worden ('to be', 'to become') - usually starts wit ge-, but not always: if a verb (already) starts with non-seperable prefixes like ge-, her-, be-, ver-, ont- or mis-, it does not get (an additional) ge-.
Unfortunately the verbs that are used most, are irregular (same as in English...), and you have to learn those one by one from the list at the grammar pages.
On the other hand, because they're used that much, most students develop a kind of intuition on irregular verbs even before they learned the whole list. This probably has to do with the fact that there are still some regularities:
- verbs with the same vowels often have the same conjugation (blijven, bleef, gebleven - krijgen, kreeg, gekregen - kijken, keek, gekeken),
- most past participles get -en.
A lot of regular and irregular verbs get prefixes in Dutch and mostly those prefixes are to be seperated (and put at the end of the phrase) in simple present and past. These prefixes often change the meaning of a verb quite drastic, but they don't change the conjugation.
A few examples: nakijken ('to check'), doorgaan ('to continue') and opstaan ('to stand up, to get up, to rise').
Text 7.4 - Seperable verbs
infinitive nakijken present ik kijk de tekst na past ik keek de tekst na perfect ik heb de tekst nagekeken infinitive doorgaan present wij gaan niet door past wij gingen niet door perfect wij zijn niet doorgegaan infinitive opstaan present hij staat om 7 uur op past hij stond om 7 uur op perfect hij is om 7 uur opgestaan
So: if seperated from the verb, the prefix usually comes at the end of the sentence and when reunited with the verb in the past participle (usually the form starting with ge-), the two are written as one again.
By the way, the prefix always get an emphasis in the verb
(doorgaan) or in the sentence (Hij gaat niet
door). Only non-seperable prefixes do not get any emphasis.
Vocabulary afspreken to agree babysitten to babysit het bed the bed de bioscoop the cinema het café the pub het concert the concert dan than, then de film the movie gaan to go het haar the hair het huiswerk the homework het kaartje the ticket, the card de les the lesson leuk nice, cute lopen to walk lunchen to have lunch maken to make mee/met with, along misschien maybe, perhaps naar to, at nieuw new picknicken to have a picknick rennen to run reserveren to book spelen to play tennissen to play tennis het theater the theater uitgaan to go out vroeg early wassen to wash de zin the desire, the sentence
More ...
- Before you move on to the next chapter you should study
- Grammar pages: Verbs - past
- Grammar pages: Verbs - perfect
- Grammar pages: Irregular verbs
- Grammar pages: Exercises - Verbs
- Grammar pages: On seperable and non-seperable verbs (+ exercises)
- You could exercise inviting someone by finding another student and inviting him/her to the theater, movies, etcetera. You could agree that the invited person turns down the invitation with a reasonable excuse.
- Try to exercise past and perfect tenses by changing present tense sentences you hear into past and perfect.