Present Tense: Regular Verbs
Present Tense: Regular Verbs
Dutch regular verbs conjugate by trimming the infinitive down to a bare stem and adding a short, predictable set of endings — a fuller system than English's own present tense, which only marks the third person singular.
Grammar Comparison
Grammar Comparison
werken (to work) — the core pattern
ik werk, jij werkt, hij werkt, wij werken, jullie werken, zij werken
I work, you work, he works, we work, you work, they work
English barely marks its present tense at all — only the third person singular gets an ending (he works vs. I/you/we/they work). Dutch marks more persons: drop -en from the infinitive to get the stem (werk-), then add nothing for ik, -t for jij/hij/zij, and -en for every plural form. Once you've memorized this single pattern, every regular Dutch verb conjugates exactly the same way — more forms to track than English, but a fully mechanical, exception-light system.
jij/jullie inversion drops the -t
Werk jij vandaag? (Do you work today? — jij werkt loses its -t when jij follows the verb)
Do you work today?
One small wrinkle with no English parallel: when jij comes right after the verb (in questions, or after a fronted word), the verb drops its -t ending — jij werkt becomes werk jij?, not werkt jij?. English verb forms never change based on word order this way, only based on person and tense.
Vocabulary
Vocabulary
| Dutch | Pronunciation | English |
|---|---|---|
| werken | VER-ken | to work |
| leren | LAY-ren | to learn / study |
| koken | KOH-ken | to cook |
| ik werk | ik verk | I work |
| jij werkt | yay verkt | you work |
| hij werkt | hey verkt | he works |
| wij werken | vay VER-ken | we work |
| zij werken | zay VER-ken | they work |