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Dutch Word Order Question | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| tracker465 Senior Member United States Joined 5350 days ago 355 posts - 496 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Dutch | Message 9 of 12 05 July 2010 at 6:55am | IP Logged | ||
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I have another question regarding the Dutch language, which the advanced MT course brought into light. Are these two sentences really equal to one another:
1) Ik had het gekocht als ik het kon finden. 2) Ik zou het gekocht hebben als ik het kon finden. (I would have bought it if I could find it) If these two structures can be used interchangeably, is one more common in written/spoken Dutch? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| ReneeMona Diglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 5333 days ago 864 posts - 1274 votes Speaks: Dutch*, EnglishC2 Studies: French | Message 10 of 12 05 July 2010 at 1:35pm | IP Logged | ||
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Yes, both are correct ways of phrasing a conditional sentence. I think the second way is more common in (casual) spoken Dutch but I wouldn't be surprised to find it in a written text either. The first sounds less common and maybe a bit more formal to my ears. I was trying to imagine which one a judge would use in one of those formal descriptions of a crime and I think they would use the first so I guess that one is more formal. Personally, I almost always use the second in both speaking and writing.
I was actually thinking that maybe the first way is the original way but since it simply uses the past tense, the second way of using "zouden" developed to emphasis that the sentence is hypothetical. This is just me speculating though, I don't know if it's true. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| tracker465 Senior Member United States Joined 5350 days ago 355 posts - 496 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Dutch | Message 11 of 12 05 July 2010 at 6:43pm | IP Logged | ||
Thanks for the information! I personally like the second way as well, because it does stress the hypothetical nature of the sentence, like you mentioned. I just found it so weird that both constructions could be used to mean the same thing, so I wanted to check on here, as opposed to just listening to the MT tapes as the ultimate authority :) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Liface Triglot Senior Member United States youtube.com/user/Lif Joined 5856 days ago 150 posts - 237 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish Studies: Dutch, French | Message 12 of 12 05 July 2010 at 7:04pm | IP Logged | ||
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I like the second way for enforcing grammar, but now that I know the first way is acceptable, I'm just going to say that. One of my pet peeves about Dutch is that you have to (or so I thought until now) use two words to form the conditional (zouden + werkwoord).
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