Register  Login  Active Topics  Maps  

Te (NL: locative preposition)

 Language Learning Forum : Questions About Your Target Languages Post Reply
1e4e6
Octoglot
Senior Member
United Kingdom
Joined 4235 days ago

1013 posts - 1588 votes 
Speaks: English*, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Norwegian, Dutch, Swedish, Italian
Studies: German, Danish, Russian, Catalan

 
 Message 1 of 5
06 August 2014 at 12:03am | IP Logged 
I have big problems with using "te" as a locative preposition, i.e. not as "Dat schijnt
me onmogelijk te zijn" or "te veel" but like "te Rotterdam". From inference it seems
that "te" is used for fixed locations that are stationary, i.e. "thuis" (like DE: zu
hausen), or te Den Haag (or Ten Haag?), but I am unsure why it is te + location instead
of "bij" or "op". For example, "Ik studeerde te Groningen" or "Het Rijksmuseum
te Amsterdam", but, "Ik woon in Nederland", why is it "te" in one, and
"in" in the other, same with "op kantoor" or "bij de arts" do not take "te" even though
all of these expressions seem to be some variation of a fixed location.

I sent an e-mail to a shop last week and asked, "Waaneer is het van plan de nieuwe
titels bij de winkel staan te kopen? Als u mij er wat inlichtingen over
informeren, zal ik er u zeer dankbaar voor zijn", and I debated whether to use "bij de"
or "te", so I just guessed and used the former.

Edited by 1e4e6 on 06 August 2014 at 12:20am

1 person has voted this message useful



Doitsujin
Diglot
Senior Member
Germany
Joined 5265 days ago

1256 posts - 2363 votes 
Speaks: German*, English

 
 Message 2 of 5
06 August 2014 at 9:04am | IP Logged 
1e4e6 wrote:
[...] i.e. "thuis" (like DE: zu hausen)

The German equivalent of thuis is zu Hause or zu zuhause (in "reformed German").

My Dutch has become extremely rusty, but, IIRC, te can be used with place names in formal Dutch instead of in.


1 person has voted this message useful



Julie
Heptaglot
Senior Member
PolandRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 6848 days ago

1251 posts - 1733 votes 
5 sounds
Speaks: Polish*, EnglishB2, GermanC2, SpanishB2, Dutch, Swedish, French

 
 Message 3 of 5
07 August 2014 at 8:46pm | IP Logged 
As Doitsujin has already pointed out, 'te' is more formal than 'in'.

Here you can read a bit more about it: http://taaladvies.net/taal/advies/vraag/1277

I think 'te' is used only/mostly as an alternative to 'in' (actually, all the examples I've seen included city names), and not instead of 'op' or 'bij', but let's wait for someone more knowledgeable about Dutch grammar :).


1 person has voted this message useful





Fasulye
Heptaglot
Winner TAC 2012
Moderator
Germany
fasulyespolyglotblog
Joined 5792 days ago

5460 posts - 6006 votes 
1 sounds
Speaks: German*, DutchC1, EnglishB2, French, Italian, Spanish, Esperanto
Studies: Latin, Danish, Norwegian, Turkish
Personal Language Map

 
 Message 4 of 5
12 August 2014 at 10:29am | IP Logged 
QUOTE: "I sent an e-mail to a shop last week and asked, "Waaneer is het van plan de nieuwe titels bij de winkel staan te kopen? Als u mij er wat inlichtingen over informeren, zal ik er u zeer dankbaar voor zijn."

@1e4e6, I am sorry, but your two Dutch sentences are full of mistakes. If you give me the English translation, I will write them in correct Dutch for you. Now I don't really understand what you mean to say.

Fasulye

Edited by Fasulye on 12 August 2014 at 10:31am

1 person has voted this message useful



tarvos
Super Polyglot
Winner TAC 2012
Senior Member
China
likeapolyglot.wordpr
Joined 4652 days ago

5310 posts - 9399 votes 
Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans
Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish

 
 Message 5 of 5
17 August 2014 at 11:00pm | IP Logged 
As Julie said, it's a more formal way of saying "in" or "at" when it comes to places.
The most common way of using "te" here is when describing places of birth and death:

Hans Mulder: Geboren 5 juli 1965 te Den Haag (never TEN HAAG), gestorven 2 mei 2004 te
Zierikzee.

It's also used with city names, NEVER with country names (geboren in Nederland, never
te).

Your Dutch is full of contaminations, by the way:

iemand over iets informeren (to inform somebody about something)
iemand inlichtingen geven over iets (to give information or enlightenment to someone on
some subject).

The correct spelling is "wanneer" (short a!)

And so on and so forth.


2 persons have voted this message useful



If you wish to post a reply to this topic you must first login. If you are not already registered you must first register


Post ReplyPost New Topic Printable version Printable version

You cannot post new topics in this forum - You cannot reply to topics in this forum - You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum - You cannot create polls in this forum - You cannot vote in polls in this forum


This page was generated in 0.2656 seconds.


DHTML Menu By Milonic JavaScript
Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved
No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization.