REFERRING
Pronouns and adverbs sometimes refer to a word
that's already been mentioned, or is about to be
mentioned. When you refer with a personal or
possessive pronoun, there's a difference between
masculine, feminine and neuter words.
hij
and
zijn
refer to naar
masculine (m) words
zij
and haar
refer to
vrouwelijke/feminine (v) words
het
and
zijn
to onzijdige/neuter
(o) words
Note: Names of countries and cities are always
neuter.
If you have doubts about the gender of a word,
you can always look it up in a dictionary.
HET
The personal pronoun 'het' can refer to:
1. (part of) a previous sentence
Example:
Het centrum van Amsterdam is vannacht erg
onrustig geweest;
ik heb het vanmorgen
in de krant gelezen.
(The centre of Amsterdam has been very inquiet
last night, I read it in the paper this
morning.
2. (part of) a sentence that comes after the
pronoun in case.
Example:
Het
is erg vervelend
dat we niet naar de
voorstelling konden.
(It
is very annoying that we couldn't go to the
show)
HUN - HEN - ZE
The personal pronoun
hun is solely used
as an indirect object without the words 'aan' or
'voor' that usually come along with an indirect
object.
Hen should be used as an object and after
a preposition.
Demonstrative and relative pronouns
Demonstrative pronouns
Deze
(this/these)
and
die (that/those) refer to
de-woorden (de bank, de boeken).
Dit (this)
en
dat (that)
refer to het-woorden
(het boek, het tafeltje).
Relative pronouns
Die
refers to masculine and feminine words.
Dat
refers to neuter words.
The relative pronoun
wat
You use the relative pronoun 'wat'
- after indefinite pronouns:
Alles wat
hij wist, schreef hij op.
(litt.: Everything he knew, he wrote down.)
- after a superlative: het mooiste, het aardigste,
het grootste
Het mooiste wat
ik gelezen heb, zal ik je vertellen.
(I shall tell you the most beautiful (thing) I
read)
- if you can replace 'wat' by 'datgene wat'
(Datgene) Wat
ik niet vergeten ben, zal ik noteren
(I shall write down what I didn't forget.)
if 'wat' refers to something in a previous
sentence.
Hij zei toen iets totaal anders, wat me
irriteerde. (He then said something completely
different, which annoyed me.)
Adverbs
Adverbs such as
hierop, eraan, waarop,
daarover, enz.
( hereat, thereat, whereat etc.)
refer to words or wordgroups.
Hij is toch gekomen;
hierop
hadden we niet gerekend.
(He came after all, which
we hadn't count on.)
We waren
eraan gewend
dat hij niet kwam. (We were used to him not
coming.)
You can seperate these adverbs.
Roken is schadelijk voor
je gezondheid;
daarvan
zal je spijt krijgen.
Roken is schadelijk voor je gezondheid;
daar
zal je spijt
van
krijgen.
(Smoking is bad for your health: you will regret
it.)
Exercise
Use Google translate
!
