House & Home
House & Home
Dutch writes compounds as single words, so what English spreads over two — 'living room', 'bedroom door', 'front garden' — arrives in Dutch as one long noun. Household vocabulary is where this habit becomes unavoidable.
Grammar Comparison
Grammar Comparison
Compounds are written as one word, however long
de woonkamer, de slaapkamerdeur, de voortuin
the living room, the bedroom door, the front garden
English writes most noun compounds as separate words or with a hyphen. Dutch joins them into a single word with no space, and can keep stacking: slaapkamer, slaapkamerdeur, slaapkamerdeurklink. The last element determines both the meaning and the gender — de kamer makes de woonkamer, het raam makes het slaapkamerraam — so the article always comes from the final noun in the chain.
thuis and naar huis: 'home' is two different words
Ik ben thuis. Ik ga naar huis.
I'm at home. I'm going home.
English uses the bare word 'home' for both the location and the destination. Dutch distinguishes them: thuis is the adverb for being at home, while naar huis is the phrase for heading there. Saying 'ik ga thuis' or 'ik ben naar huis' both sound clearly wrong. The related noun het huis means the building itself, which thuis notably does not.
huren, verhuren, verhuizen — one root, three meanings
Ik huur een appartement. Hij verhuurt kamers. Wij verhuizen morgen.
I rent a flat. He rents out rooms. We're moving tomorrow.
English uses 'rent' for both sides of the transaction and relies on 'out' to distinguish them. Dutch has separate verbs: huren for the tenant, verhuren for the landlord — the ver- prefix flipping the direction of the action. verhuizen ('to move house') looks related but comes from huis, not huren, and is a false trail worth noting since the two appear together constantly in housing contexts.
Vocabulary
Vocabulary
- English
- the living room
- English
- the bedroom
- English
- the kitchen
- English
- the bathroom
- English
- the attic
- English
- the stairs
- English
- the rent
- English
- to rent
- English
- to move house
- English
- at home
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