Contents

Welcome to the Michel Thomas Method 1

About Michel Thomas 3
Index to Intermediate Dutch 4
Welcome to the Michel Thomas Method
Congratulations on purchasing a truly remarkable way to learn a language.
With the Michel Thomas Method there’s no reading, no writing and no
homework. Just sit back, absorb, and soon you’ll be speaking another
language with confidence.

The Michel Thomas Method works by breaking a language down into its
component parts and enabling you to reconstruct the language yourself –
to form your own sentences and to say what you want, when you want.
By learning the language in small steps, you can build it up yourself to
produce ever more complicated sentences.

In the French, German, Italian and Spanish Foundation courses, Michel

Thomas himself teaches two students who have no previous knowledge
of the language – or, in the case of the Intermediate courses, students
who know only what they learned in the Foundation courses. You join in
as the third student in Michel’s class, and learn with them. The courses
are unscripted: you hear the students’ progression in the studio from
absolute beginners to confident speakers – including their mistakes and
Michel’s subsequent corrections. The French, German, Italian and Spanish
Vocabulary Courses were devised after Michel’s death by Dr Rose Lee
Hayden, who worked closely with him in his language school in New York.
The methodology is again cumulative, but in these courses the teacher
is assisted by two native speakers in order to advance learners in their
pronunciation as well as their vocabulary.

The Arabic (Egyptian and Modern Standard), Dutch, Greek, Hindi,

Japanese, Korean, Mandarin, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian and
Swedish Start, Foundation and Intermediate courses were developed by the
team at Hodder that produced Michel’s original French, German, Italian
and Spanish Foundation and Intermediate courses. The teachers, who are
native speakers, or else are assisted by native speakers, similarly teach
students with no previous knowledge of the language and carefully follow
Michel Thomas’s Method. The Egyptian Arabic, Mandarin and Russian
Vocabulary Courses follow the same unscripted format, with the same
teaching teams and students learning in the studio.

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The key to your success in these all-audio courses is for you to
understand what you learn, and then to internalize it. To do so, you must
take an active part in the process. When the teacher asks, ‘How do you
say …?’, use your pause button to give yourself time to think out your
answer and say it out loud (or in your head). Then release the pause
button, and listen to the answer given on the recording. In this way you
will experience a constant sense of progression, a constant sense of
learning, that you will find exciting, stimulating and self-rewarding.

Perfected over 50 years, the all-audio Michel Thomas Method has been
used by millions of people around the world.

Now it’s your turn.

To get started, simply start the audio!

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About Michel Thomas
Michel Thomas (1914–2005) was a gifted linguist who mastered more
than ten languages in his lifetime and became famous for teaching much
of Hollywood’s ‘A’ list how to speak a foreign language. Film stars such as
Woody Allen, Emma Thompson and Barbra Streisand paid thousands of
dollars each for face-to-face lessons.

Michel, a Polish Jew, developed his method after discovering the untapped
potential of the human mind during his traumatic wartime experiences.
The only way he survived this period of his life, which included being
captured by the Gestapo, was by concentrating and placing his mind
beyond the physical. Fascinated by this experience, he was determined
that after the war he would devote himself to exploring further the
power of the human mind, and so dedicated his life to education.

In 1947, he moved to Los Angeles and set up the Michel Thomas

Language Centers, from where he taught languages for over fifty years
in New York, Beverly Hills and London.

Michel Thomas died at his home in New York City on Saturday

8th January 2005. He was 90 years old.

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Index to Intermediate Dutch
Hour 1 Track 1
goedemorgen = ‘good morning’; goedemiddag = ‘good afternoon’;
goedenavond = ‘good evening’.
mij = ‘me’ (stressed); jullie doen het voor mij = ‘you (plural) are doing it for me’.

Hour 1 Track 2
jou = ‘you’ (stressed); ik doe het niet voor jou = ‘I’m not doing it for you’.

Hour 1 Track 3
van = ‘of’; het is van jou = ‘it is yours’; van wie is dit? = ‘of who(m) is this?’ =
‘whose is this?’
kan je me even helpen? = ‘can you (just) help me?’ = ‘could you help me?’
The final -n in words ending in ‑en (even, helpen) is often not sounded.

Hour 1 Track 4
kon = ‘could’ (past tense of kunnen ‘to be able’). The forms for ‘I’, ‘you’
(singular), ‘he’, ‘she’ and ‘it’ are the same in the past tense of kunnen.
lang = ‘long’ (time), al lang = ‘already for a long time’, altijd = ‘always’.

Hour 1 Track 5
The present tense can be used for the future: Ik werk morgen niet = ‘I’m
not working tomorrow’ and ‘I won’t work tomorrow’. Alternatively, you
can use the verb gaan (to go): ik ga morgen niet werken = ‘I am not going
to work tomorrow’.
To say you have to do something, you use the verb moeten: ik moet het
morgen doen = ‘I have to do it tomorrow’.
To say you promise that you’re going to do something, you use the verb
zullen: ik zal het morgen doen = ‘I will / shall do it tomorrow’.

Hour 1 Track 6
zal ik het doen? = ‘shall I do it?’ laten we gaan = ‘let’s go’; laten we naar
Amsterdam gaan = ‘let’s go to Amsterdam’.

Hour 1 Track 7
waar ga je naartoe? = ‘where are you going (towards)?’; ga je daar naartoe?
= ‘are you going there (towards)?’

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huis = ‘house’; thuis = ‘at home’; ik ga naar huis = ‘I am going home’; laten
we thuis blijven = ‘let’s stay at home’.

Hour 1 Track 8
glas (het) = ‘glass (the)’; ik wil graag een glas water = ‘I would like a glass
(of) water’ – the ‘of’ is omitted in Dutch.
staan = ‘to stand’; ik sta hier = ‘I am standing here’; liggen = ‘to lie’; ik
ga liggen = ‘I am going to lie (down)’. Zitten, liggen and staan are often
used in Dutch to indicate position, as in het glas staat daar = ‘the glass is
(standing) there’.
boek (het) = ‘book (the)’, plural boeken.

Hour 1 Track 9
er = an unstressed form of daar ‘there’: hij zit er = ‘he’s sitting there’; er is
geen tijd = ‘there’s no time’.
huizen = ‘houses’; er staan veel huizen = ‘there are many houses’.

Hour 1 Track 10
erop = ‘on (it)’; de kat zit erop = ‘the cat is (sitting) on it’.
All diminutives are het words: het katje ligt erop = ‘the little cat / kitten is
lying on it’.

Hour 1 Track 11
hoe gaat het? = ‘how are you?’ (literally ‘how goes it?’).
hen = ‘them’ (stressed form; unstressed form is ze); hoe gaat het met hen
= ‘how is it going with them?’ = ‘how are they?’
alles gaat heel goed met me = ‘everything is going very well with me’ =
‘I’m fine’.

Hour 1 Track 12
halen = ‘to get’ or ‘to fetch’; ophalen = ‘to pick up’, with emphasis or stress
on the prefix op­‑. In such verbs the stressed prefix breaks off when the
verb is not used in its ‘to’ form: ik haal het voor je op = ‘I’ll pick it up for
you’; we halen het voor jullie op = ‘we’ll pick it up for you’ (plural).
herhalen = ‘to repeat’. The emphasis is on ‑ha‑, not on the prefix her-. In
such verbs the unstressed prefix does not break off: ze herhaalt het altijd
= ‘she always repeats it’.
kijken = ‘to look’ or ‘to watch’; kijk uit! = ‘look out!’; hij mag wel kijken maar
jij niet = ‘he is allowed to watch but you are not’.

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Hour 1 Track 13
kijken naar = ‘to look at / to watch’; (de) film = ‘(the) film’; ik kijk naar de
film = ‘I’m watching the film’; ze kijkt ernaar = ‘she’s looking at it’.
uitkijken = ‘to look out’; uitkijken naar = ‘to look forward to’; the uit is
stressed and therefore breaks off: ze kijkt ernaar uit = ‘she’s looking
forward to it.’

Hour 1 Track 14
ik mag het hebben = ‘I am allowed to have it’ = ‘I can have it’; ik mocht het
hebben = ‘I was allowed to have it’; jullie mochten het zien = ‘you (all) were
allowed to see it’.
moeten = ‘have to’; moesten = ‘had to’; ze moesten het hebben = ‘they had
to have it’.
Ik mocht dat niet (doen) = ‘I wasn’t allowed to do that’; the second verb
doen is sometimes dropped, as in English (‘I wasn’t allowed’). This also
happens with some other common verbs, such as komen, gaan and
hebben: mochten ze binnen (komen)? = ‘were they allowed (to come) in?’

Hour 1 Track 15
terug = ‘back’, as in teruggaan = ‘to go back’; zullen we teruggaan? = ‘shall
we go back?’; rug = ‘back’ (i.e. part of the body).
To add emphasis in English, we will often start a sentence with something
other than the person or thing doing the action (technically known as the
‘subject’), as in ‘No longer am I putting up with this’ (instead of ‘I am putting
up with this no longer’). When this happens in English we swap the order of
the subject and verb: ‘am I’ instead of ‘I am’. This ‘special swap’ also happens
in Dutch whenever we start the sentence with something other than the
subject: Dat weet ik al = ‘that I know already’ = ‘I already know that’.

Hour 1 Track 16
nu weet ik het = ‘now I know it’; it is quite common to start a sentence
with a ‘time’ phrase. This is not the subject so it triggers a ‘special swap’.
misschien = ‘maybe’ or ‘perhaps’; misschien komt ze ook = ‘perhaps she’ll
come too / she might come too’; ook niet ‘not either’: ik doe het ook niet
= ‘I’m not doing it either’; morgen doe ik het ook niet = ‘I’m not doing it
tomorrow either’.

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Hour 2 Track 1
ik kom als ik tijd heb = ‘I’ll come if I have time’; but als ik tijd heb, kom ik =
‘if I have time, I’ll come’. als ik tijd heb can be seen as a single idea. As it is
at the beginning of the sentence, it triggers a ‘special swap’.
ik denk dat het niet belangrijk is = ‘I think that it’s not important’.

Hour 2 Track 2
met = ‘with’, but when it is put together with another word it becomes
mee: ik wil meedoen = ‘I want to join in’; je mag later meekomen = ‘you
can / are allowed to come (along) later’.
ze blijven vandaag, hoop ik = ‘they’re going to stay today, I hope’.

Hour 2 Track 3
het is saai, vind ik = ‘it’s boring, I find’; final ‘d’ sounds like ‘t’.
vroeg = ‘early’; het is te vroeg om te drinken = ‘it’s too early to drink’. As
with beter and later, the comparative (‘more early’) is made by adding ‑er:
vroeger = ‘earlier’ (in the past).
niets was vroeger beter = ‘nothing was better in the past’; but vroeger was
niets beter = ‘in the past, nothing was better’.
moeilijker = ‘more difficult’; leuker = ‘more fun’; the final ‑r in comparative
forms should always be pronounced.

Hour 2 Track 4
vroeger had ik goede vrienden = ‘earlier (in the past) I had good friends’ =
‘I used to have good friends’.
dan = ‘than’: hij doet het beter dan zij = ‘he does it better than she (does)’.

Hour 2 Track 5
ik zou het niet doen = ‘I wouldn’t do it’; ik zou dat kunnen doen = ‘I would
be able to do that’.
combineren = ‘to combine’; ze zouden dat niet kunnen doen = ‘they
wouldn’t be able to do that’.

Hour 2 Track 6
nooit = ‘never’: wij zouden dat nooit willen doen = ‘we would never want to
do that’.
nog = ‘still’; het regent nog = ‘it is still raining’.

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Hour 2 Track 7
nog iets = ‘still something’ = ‘something else’: wil je nog iets drinken? =
‘would you like something else to drink?’; nog niet = ‘still not’ = ‘not yet’: ik
spreek het nog niet = ‘I don’t speak it yet’; ik weet het nog = ‘I know it still’
= ‘I remember it’.

Hour 2 Track 8
ik heb het = ‘I have it’: the final ‑b sounds like a ‘p’; nodig = ‘need’; ik heb
het nodig = ‘I have it needy’ = ‘I need it’.
To say that you have, or had, done something in the past, you ‘dive into
the past’ using the verb hebben, ‘to have’, plus (usually) the sound of the
form of the verb that goes with hij, ze or het (e.g. zegt), prefixed by ge‑
(e.g. gezegd). Note that gezegd sounds like gezegt because the final -d
sounds like -t.
This ‘diving’ or ge‑ part of the verb (the past participle) goes at the end
of the phrase or sentence: ik heb het gezegd = ‘I said (have said) it’; ik had
het gezegd = ‘I had said it’.

Hour 2 Track 9
hij leert Nederlands = ‘he is learning Dutch’; hij heeft Nederlands geleerd =
‘he learnt (has learnt) Dutch’.
in het Engels = ‘in English’: hoe zeg je dat in het Engels? = ‘how do you say
that in English?’; ik heb het nog niet geleerd = ‘I haven’t learnt it yet’; ze had
het nog nooit geleerd = ‘she had never (before in her life) learnt it’; ik heb
hem gisteravond gebeld = ‘I rang (called) him last night’.

Hour 2 Track 10
ooit = ‘ever’: heb je dat ooit geleerd? = ‘have you ever learnt that?’; hij heeft
het haar gezegd = ‘he has told her’; heb je ooit in Amsterdam gewerkt? =
‘have you ever worked in Amsterdam?’
mooi = both ‘beautiful’ and ‘beautifully’: je hebt dat mooi gezegd = ‘you said
that beautifully’.

Hour 2 Track 11
maken = ‘to make’; hij heeft het klaargemaakt = ‘he (has) made it ready’ =
‘he’s got it ready’.
With the trigger verbs willen and kunnen, a t sound (final -d) is added to the
verb form to make the diving form: ik heb het gewild = ‘I have wanted it’.
wachten op = ‘to wait for’: ik heb op je gewacht = ‘I have waited for you’.

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Hour 2 Track 12
For verbs with unstressed prefixes like herhalen, we don’t add ge- to form
the ‘diving’ past: hij heeft het nog nooit herhaald = ‘he has never repeated
it yet’; betalen = ‘to pay’: hij betaalt altijd = he always pays; hij heeft altijd
betaald = ‘he has always paid’.

Hour 2 Track 13
ontdekken = ‘to discover’ has an unstressed prefix, so doesn’t get a ge‑ in the
‘diving past’: ze heeft dat nog niet ontdekt = ‘she hasn’t discovered that yet’.

Hour 2 Track 14
een beetje = ‘a little bit (of)’: het is een beetje moeilijk = ‘it’s a bit difficult’;
zo = ‘so’: het is niet zo moeilijk = ‘it’s not so difficult’; heel veel = ‘very
much’: wij hebben heel veel geleerd = ‘we’ve learnt very much’.

Hour 2 Track 15
ik zou het hebben = ‘I would have it’ or ‘I was supposed to have it’: ik zou
het voor hem vragen = ‘I would ask it for him’ or ‘I was supposed to ask it
for him’ –­­ the context determines the meaning.
jullie zouden het vragen, maar wij hebben het gevraagd = ‘you were
supposed to ask it, but we asked it’; ik heb het hem gevraagd = ‘I asked
him it’.
ik zou het gevraagd hebben = ‘I would have asked it’; there is a shorter
way to say this: ik had het gevraagd; again, the context determines whether
‘I had asked it’ or ‘I would have asked it’ is meant.

Hour 2 Track 16
kopen = ‘to buy’; it is an irregular verb and the form that we dive into
(‘bought’ in English) is not gekoopt but gekocht: ze hadden het gekocht als
ze konden = ‘they would have bought it if they could’.
In Dutch, time comes before place: ik heb het gisteren in Amsterdam
gekocht = ‘I bought it in Amsterdam yesterday’; you could also say: gisteren
heb ik het in Amsterdam gekocht.

Hour 3 Track 1
gedaan = done: je hebt het gedaan = ‘you have done it’ or ‘you did it’;
graag gedaan = ‘done with pleasure’ = ‘my pleasure!’
For some verbs the ‘diving past’ is formed by putting ge‑ in front of the
whole verb: gegeven = ‘given’; gezien = ‘seen’; gewassen = ‘washed’; gestaan

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= ‘stood’; gegaan = ‘gone’; gekomen = ‘come’; we will say that other
verbs that fit this pattern can be put in the ‘geven box’.

Hour 3 Track 2
ik weet niet of ze het gewassen hebben or ik weet niet of ze het hebben
gewassen = ‘I don’t know if (whether) they’ve washed it’.

Hour 3 Track 3
haasten = ‘hurry’: ze moest zich haasten = ‘she needed to hurry (herself)’;
ik heb me gehaast = ‘I have hurried (myself)’; hij moest zich wassen = ‘he
had to have a wash’.

Hour 3 Track 4
ze haalt het voor ons = ‘she is fetching it for us’; ik heb het voor haar
gehaald = ‘I have fetched it for her’; jullie moesten het ophalen = ‘you (all)
had to pick it up’.
With a verb like ophalen, where the prefix is stressed, in the diving past
the prefix breaks off and is put before the ge‑: ik heb het opgehaald =
‘I have picked it up’.
klaarmaken = ‘to make something ready’: hij heeft het klaargemaakt = ‘he
(has) prepared it’.

Hour 3 Track 5
hij heeft het schoongemaakt = ‘he cleaned it’; ze hebben niet meegedaan =
‘they didn’t join in’.

Hour 3 Track 6
As mooi = ‘beautiful’, mooier = ‘more beautiful’, so mooist = ‘most
beautiful’. An ‑e is added when the adjective is placed before the thing it
describes: dit is de mooiste kat = ‘this is the most beautiful cat’.
best = ‘best’; haar beste vriend = ‘her best friend’.
zullen is also used for prediction: zij zal het (wel) doen = ‘she will do it, I
expect’.
ik denk dat zij het zou doen = ‘I think she would do it’; wij zouden het
mogen zien = ‘we would be allowed to see it’.

Hour 3 Track 7
If you are using the ‘diving past’ of a trigger verb, and you want to follow it
with another verb, you use both of them in the ‘to’ form (infinitive): ik heb

10
dat willen doen = ‘I have to want to do that’ = ‘I have wanted to do that’;
ik heb het haar laten zien = ‘I (have) let her see it’ = ‘I showed it to her’.

Hour 3 Track 8
ik had het niet willen doen = ‘I hadn’t wanted to do it’.
hoeven + niet + te = ‘to not have to’; jullie hoeven niet te gaan = ‘you
don’t have to go’; ik hoef niet te gaan = ‘I don’t have to go’; hij hoeft niet te
betalen = ‘he doesn’t have to pay’.

Hour 3 Track 9
ik kon het kopen = ‘I could (was able to) buy it’; ik zou het morgen kunnen
kopen = ‘I could (would be able to) buy it tomorrow’.

Hour 3 Track 10
ik had het kunnen kopen = ‘I could have bought it’; je had iets kunnen
zeggen = ‘you could have said something’; je had iets moeten doen = ‘you
should have done something’.

Hour 3 Track 11
jullie hadden iets mogen zeggen = ‘you would have been allowed to say
something’; ik vind het leuk om te doen = ‘I find it nice to do it’ = ‘I like to
do it’; het zou leuk zijn om je te zien = ‘it would be nice to see you’.

Hour 3 Track 12
zal ik het laten repareren? = ‘shall I let it be repaired?’ = ‘shall I have it
repaired?’
waar was je? = ‘where were you?’; er was eens = ‘there was once’ = ‘once
upon a time’.
Het is een goede vraag = ‘it’s a good question’; het zijn goede vragen =
‘they are good questions’.

Hour 3 Track 13
Some verbs, such as many verbs dealing with change or coming and
going, use the verb zijn ‘to be’ to form the ‘diving past’: ik ben gegaan, je
bent gegaan, hij / zij is gegaan = ‘I am (have) / you are (have) / he / she is
(has) gone’ or ‘I / you / he / she went’; we / jullie / zij zijn gegaan = ‘we /
you / they are (have) gone’ or ‘we / you / they went’; waar ben je naartoe
gegaan? = ‘where are you gone to?’ = ‘where have you gone (to)?’;
we zijn laat uitgegaan = ‘we went out late’.

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Hour 3 Track 14
ik ben gekomen = ‘I have come’; hij komt morgen aan = ‘he’s arriving
tomorrow’; hoe laat zijn ze aangekomen? = ‘at what time did they arrive?’;
ik hoop dat hij terugkomt = ‘I hope that he’s coming back’.

Hour 3 Track 15
beginnen = ‘to begin’; begonnen = ‘begun’; wij zijn gisteren begonnen = ‘we
began yesterday’.
worden = ‘to become’ or ‘to get’; ik word moe = ‘I’m getting tired’; hij zal
moe worden = ‘he’ll become tired’; het is mooi geworden = ‘it has become
beautiful (nice)’.

Hour 3 Track 16
zijn = ‘to be’ and blijven = ‘to stay’ also dive into zijn: waar ben je geweest? =
‘where have you been?’; wij zijn nog nooit in Amsterdam geweest = ‘we’ve
never been in Amsterdam’; waar was hij geweest? = ‘where had he been?’;
we waren daar geweest = ‘we had been there’.

Hour 4 Track 1
ik heb het gezegd = ‘I have said it’; ik zou het zeggen als ik daar geweest
was = ‘I would say (it) if I had been there’; ik had het gezegd als ik daar
geweest was = ‘I would have said (it) if I had been there’.
hij is aangekomen = ‘ he has arrived’; je zou het geweten hebben (or je had
het geweten) als hij aangekomen was = ‘you would have known it if he had
arrived’.

Hour 4 Track 2
ik ben lang gebleven = ‘I (have) stayed a long time’; wij blijven maar een
dag = ‘we are staying but one day’ = ‘we are only staying one day’; ik was
gebleven = ‘I had stayed’ or ‘I would have stayed’. For ‘would have’, therefore,
verbs of coming and going will use was or waren, while the others will use
had or hadden.
wij waren al begonnen = ‘we had already started’.

Hour 4 Track 3
ik heb het geprobeerd = ‘I have tried it’; het was goed geweest = ‘it would
have been good’.
het was mogelijk geweest om het te doen, als wij vroeger begonnen waren =
‘it would have been possible to do it if we had started earlier’.

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Hour 4 Track 4
Like in English, there is often a pattern to the vowel changes in the past
tenses. Here ij ‘dives’ into e: kijken = ‘to look’ → gekeken; begrijpen =
‘to understand’ → begrepen; and i ‘dives’ into o: drinken = ‘to drink’ →
gedronken; vinden = ‘to find’ → gevonden.
koffie = ‘coffee’.

Hour 4 Track 5
ga even weg = ‘go away (for a moment)’; ga even zitten = ‘just go and sit
down (for a moment)’; gaat u zitten, said without a questioning intonation, is
a polite request to someone to sit down; komt u binnen = ‘come in’ (polite).
wil je dat ik dit doe? = ‘do you want that I do this?’ = ‘do you want me to
do this?’

Hour 4 Track 6
leven = ‘to live (be alive)’; het leven = ‘(the) life’; hij leeft = ‘he lives’; hij
heeft lang geleefd = ‘he has lived a long time’.
eten = ‘to eat’; het eten = ‘food’; het eten had beter kunnen zijn = ‘the food
could have been better’.

Hour 4 Track 7
wachten = ‘to wait’; het wachten = ‘the waiting’; nouns like these which are
formed from the ‘to’ form of the verb are all het words, like het huis, het boek.
All plurals are de words: de katten = ‘the cats’, as are all words ending in
-atie: de combinatie = ‘the combination’.
When you refer back to a de word, you have to use hij or hem to mean
‘it’ instead of het: de situatie wordt slecht = ‘the situation is becoming bad’;
hij (de situatie) is slecht geworden = ‘it (the situation) has become bad’.

Hour 4 Track 8
van mij = ‘mine’; de kat is van mij = ‘the cat is mine’; hij is van mij maar ik
wil hem niet = ‘it’s mine, but I don’t want it’ (even if the cat is female).
de weg = ‘the road’; het is de goede weg = ‘it is the right road’.
dat = ‘that’ when it refers to het words: het is het katje dat ik gekocht
heb = ‘it is the little cat that I bought’. With a de word, ‘that’ becomes die
instead of dat; both dat and die have the omdat effect: het is de kat die ik
gekocht heb = ‘it is the cat that I bought’.
de auto = ‘the car’; die auto is van mij = ‘that car is mine’.

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Hour 4 Track 9
hebben = ‘to have’ ‘dives’ into gehad: ik heb het gehad = ‘I have had it’;
de kans = ‘the chance’: ik heb nooit de kans gehad = ‘I’ve never had the
chance’.
Words ending in -ing are also de words: woning = ‘place that you live
/ accommodation’: het is een mooie woning = ‘it is a beautiful place /
residence / house’.
With het words you don’t add -e to the adjective before the noun when
it’s with een = ‘a’: een nieuw huis = ‘a new house’.

Hour 4 Track 10
ik weet het nog = ‘I still know (it)’ = ‘I remember’; toen = ‘when’, as in ‘the
period when’: toen ik jong was = ‘when I was young’.
With many verbs the (descriptive) past tense, e.g. ‘I did something’
(repeatedly) or ‘used to do something’, contrasted with the ‘diving past’
ik heb iets gedaan = ‘I have done something’ or ‘I did something’ (on one
occasion), can be made by adding -de or -den (or sometimes -te or -ten)
to the stem (‘I’ form) of the verb. This we shall call ‘wading’ into the past:
ik wilde het doen = ‘I wanted to do it’; wij wilden het doen = ‘we wanted to
do it’; ik wachtte = ‘I waited’; wij wachtten = ‘we waited’.

Hour 4 Track 11
Some verbs don’t form the ‘wading’ past in this way: kunnen → kon /
konden, moeten → moest / moesten, mogen → mocht / mochten, worden →
werd / werden.

Hour 4 Track 12
De auto is gewassen = ‘the car is (has been) washed’: in Dutch, ‘it is’ and
‘it has been’ are expressed here in exactly the same way. Similarly, both
‘was’ and ‘had been’ are expressed in the same way, as are both ‘will be’
and ‘will have been’, and both ‘would be’ and ‘would have been’: de auto
was al gewassen = ‘the car was (had been) already washed’; de auto zal
al gewassen zijn = ‘the car will already be (have been) washed’; de auto
zou al gewassen zijn = ‘the car would already be (have been) washed’; het
werd laat = ‘it was getting late’.

14
Hour 4 Track 13
To say that something is being done, we use worden: het wordt vanavond
gewassen = ‘it is being (getting) washed tonight’; het wordt gedaan = ‘it’s
getting done’.

Hour 4 Track 14
Summary of known verb forms: hij repareert het = ‘he repairs / is repairing /
has been repairing / will repair / will be repairing it’; hij repareerde het =
‘he repaired it’; hij heeft het gerepareerd = ‘he (has) repaired it’; hij had het
gerepareerd = ‘he had repaired it’; hij zal het repareren = ‘he will repair
it’ (promise); hij zal het gerepareerd hebben = ‘he will have repaired it’;
hij gaat het repareren = ‘he is going to repair it’; hij zou het repareren =
‘he would / was supposed to repair it’; hij zou het gerepareerd hebben
or hij had het gerepareerd = ‘he would have repaired it’; de auto wordt
gerepareerd = ‘the car is being repaired’; de auto is gerepareerd = ‘the car
is / has been repaired’; de auto was gerepareerd = ‘the car was / had been /
would have been / would be repaired’; de auto werd gerepareerd = ‘the
car was being repaired’; de auto zou gerepareerd worden = ‘the car would
be (get) repaired’; de auto zal gerepareerd worden = ‘the car will be (get)
repaired’; de auto zal al gerepareerd zijn = ‘the car will already be / have
been repaired’.

15
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First published in 2009 by Hodder Education, an Hachette UK company.

Intermediate Dutch Copyright © 2009, 2012, 2014, 2018 in the methodology, Thomas Keymaster Languages LLC,
all rights reserved; in the content, Cobie Adkins-de Jong and Els Van Geyte.

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Impression 1
Year 2018
Intermediate Dutch ISBN 978 1529 31917 0