
The Ultimate Guide to Dutch Grammar for the A1 and A2 Levels With Teacher's Companion
This is a PDF-file of 471 pages.
This book provides learners and teachers with a detailed insight into Dutch grammar, focusing on the beginner levels A1 and A2. It also includes additional information to facilitate the transition to higher levels. Clarity, thoroughness, and completeness are the core objectives of this publication.
Throughout the book, schematic analyses of example sentences present consistent colour coding and glossing of sentence elements. The colour scheme used in the example sentences matches that of the sentence-structure tables, ensuring coherence. All examples are numbered and translated into English for easy reference and discussion.
Grammar concepts are explained in a way that helps learners understand why structures function as they do. These explanations are informed by common questions from students in the classroom. Frequent mistakes made by learners are also presented, demonstrating potential errors and illustrating the boundaries of grammatical rules. Additionally, numerous tables summarize key aspects such as sentence structures, sentence elements, verb conjugations, and pronouns. All Dutch words used in these tables are translated into English.
The book is divided into five parts, beginning with the topic that, based on the author's experience, students refer to most: sentence structure. Part 1 covers different sentence types and conjunctions, starting with broad sentence structures before gradually addressing smaller components. Part 2 focuses on sentence constituents, called elements of the sentence. Part 3 examines the various forms verbs can take, including present and past tense conjugations, past participle formation, separable verbs, and related topics. Part 4 explains the use of verb tenses and modal verbs. Part 5 explores the noun phrase and its components, including nouns, articles, prepositions, adjectives, pronouns, and numbers. The book concludes with five appendices. Appendices 1 and 2 are lexicons of grammatical terms, one from English to Dutch and the other from Dutch to English. Appendix 3 provides a list of irregular verbs. Appendix 4 contains a treasure trove of handouts with grammar and exercises as well as worksheets for guided discovery of grammatical structures that can be completed in class or online. All exercise handouts contain instructions for the students and an answer key. Appendix 5 is the Teacher’s Companion. This compendium contains detailed instructions for teachers on how to best use the worksheets and different types of exercises in Appendix 4.
This book is designed for both teachers and learners. It is suitable for new learners at the A1 and A2 levels, as well as those refreshing their grammar knowledge before or during B1 classes. Teachers can use it to prepare lessons, not only because of the ready-to-use examples but also because the book provides clear explanations that can be used verbatim or adapted for classroom instruction.
Contents
Introduction
List of abbreviations
PART 1. SENTENCE STRUCTURE AND SENTENCE TYPES
1. Overview of the structure of the sentence
2. Questions to find different elements in the sentence
3. The clause and the sentence
4. Types of sentences
5. Independent Clauses (Hoofdzin)
6. Blue Conjunctions: linking two independent clauses
7. Dependent Clauses (Bijzin) and Pink Conjunctions
8. Dependent questions: indirect questions
PART 2. THE ELEMENTS OF THE SENTENCE
9. The Verb
10. What is going on in the sentence?
11. The Topic
12. The Subject
13. The Complement
14. The Object
15. The Target element
16. Describing the action: adverbs and adverbials
17. Negation: geen, niet
18. Other adverbs that behave like geen and niet: ook, wel
19. Er = Dummy Subject
20. ER/DAAR/HIER replace a Place
PART 3. VERBAL FORMS AND CONJUGATION
21. The infinitive and the root
22. Conjugation (1): Present tense
23. The past participle: formation
24. Conjugation (2): past-tense
25 Verbs that have roots ending in -v or -z: present past, and past participle
26 Separable verbs
PART 4. VERBAL TENSES AND MODAL VERBS
27 Quick overview of the usages of the different tenses
28 Introduction
29 The Present
30 The present continuous
31 Modal Verbs
32 Talking about the future
33 The imperfectum
34 The Perfectum
PART 5. THE NOUN PHRASE AND ITS BUILDING BLOCKS
35 Nouns
35.6 Classifier constructions: een kopje koffie, een kilo aardappels
36 The noun phrase
37 The Articles
38 Position Verbs and prepositions
39 Adjectives
40 Personal Pronouns
41 Demonstrative pronouns
42 Numbers
42.1 Cardinal numbers
42.2 Ordinal numbers
42.3 Years
Appendix 1. Lexicon of grammatical Terms: English – Dutch
Appendix 2. Lexicon of grammatical terms: Dutch English
Appendix 3. Handouts: Grammar, Worksheets and Exercises
Grammar: Question Words A1-Level
Grammar: The Article A1-level
Grammar: The Adjective A1-Level
Grammar: Position verbs A1-Level
Grammar: Prepositions A1-Level
Grammar: Demonstrative Pronouns A1-Level
Grammar: The Plural A1-Level and beyond
Grammar: Negation A1-Level
Grammar: Negation, Some Specific Expressions A2-Level
Grammar: Conjunctions A2-Level
Grammar: Separable Verbs A2-Level
Worksheet Separable Verbs A2-Level
Worksheet Separable Verbs: Answers
Worksheet ER/DAAR A2-Level
ER/DAAR: Answer Sheet
Perfectum: Worksheet for Teachers A1-Level
Perfectum: Worksheet for Students A1-Level
Worksheet Sentence Structure A2-Level
Listening and speaking exercise: Possessive Pronouns A1-level
Listening and Speaking Exercise: The Plural A1-Level
Listening and speaking exercise: Object Pronouns A1-Level
Listening and speaking exercise: Perfectum (1) A1-Level
Listening and speaking exercise: Perfectum (2) A1-Level
Listening and speaking exercise: Perfectum & Imperfectum A2-Level
Listening and speaking exercise: Reflexive Pronouns A2-Level
Listening and speaking exercise: Separable Verbs (1) A2-Level
Listening and speaking exercise. Separable Verbs (2) A2-Level
Listening and speaking exercise: Indirect Questions A2-Level
Listening and speaking exercise: ER / DAAR A2-Level
Verb practice: Present tense (1) A1-Level
Verb practice: Present tense (2) A1-Level
Verb practice: Present tense (3) A1-Level
Verb practice: Present tense (4) A1-Level
Verb practice: Present tense (5) A1-Level
Verb practice: Perfectum (1) A1-Level
Verb practice: Perfectum (2) A1-Level
Verb practice: Perfectum (3) A1-Level
Verb practice: Imperfectum A2-Level
Exercise: Making Questions A1-level
Exercise: Starting a sentence with something that is not the subject A1-Level
Exercise: Making a proposition A1-Level
Exercise with Personal Object Pronouns A1-Level
Exercise with Personal Subject and Object Pronouns A1-Level
Exercise with Prepositions A1-Level
Exercise with Separable Verbs A2-Level
Exercise with Indirect questions (1) A2-Level
Exercise with Indirect questions (2) A2-Level
Exercise with word order in Independent Clauses A2-Level
Exercise with Personal Pronouns and ER (1) A2-Level
Exercise with Personal Pronouns and ER (2) A2-Level
Exercise with ER/DAAR A2-Level
Exercises with Conjunctions (1) A2-Level
Exercises with Conjunctions (2) A2-Level
Exercise with Reflexive Verbs and Elkaar A2-Level
Negation Quiz 1 A1-Level
Negation Quiz 2 A1-Level
Negation Quiz 3 A1-Level
Negation Quiz 4 A1-Level
What is wrong? / Wat is er fout? (1) A1-Level
What is wrong? / Wat is er fout? (2) A1-Level
What is wrong? / Wat is er fout? (3) A2-Level
Appendix 4. Teacher’s Companion
1. Introduction
2. Grammar handouts – Teachers’ Instructions
3. Worksheets
3.1 Worksheet Separable Verbs – Teachers’ Instructions
3.2 Worksheet ER/DAAR – Teachers’ Instructions
3.3 Perfectum Worksheet for Students – Teachers’ Instructions
3.4 Worksheet sentence Structure – Teachers’ Instructions
4. Listening and Speaking exercises – Teachers’ Instructions
5. Verb Practice exercises – Teachers’ Instructions
6. Grammar exercises – Teachers’ Instructions
7. Negation Quizzes – Teachers’ Instructions
8. What is wrong? – Teachers’ instructions