What if I told you there’s something that’s fairly easy to learn, and that will make you better at a very common part of the Dutch language than a large chunk of its native speakers? That’s right! If you follow this one rule, you’ll never have to make the very mistake that’s easily the most common one among native speakers. I’m talking about d/t-fouten or d/t mistakes, and the Dutch are awfully prone to making them, even though the rule itself is amazingly simple – though it might take some getting used to the details.
I haven’t done a survey about it, but if you were to ask a group of Dutch people which grammar or spelling rule they hate the most, at least half of them, if not all, would come up with the same answer: the d/t rule. The d/t rule is used to determine whether the past principle of any regular verb ends in a d or a t, and whether the past simple ends in -de(n) or -te(n) – the final -n is for plural forms. You’ll see it being done wrong all the time, from simple text messages to study books and from work emails to newspaper articles.
And the odd thing is: there’s no need for it whatsoever! There is one somewhat simple rule that determines everything: one rule to rule them all. However, to understand that rule, you’ll need to understand a bit more about how the Dutch language works. This is actually a bit difficult, but once you’ve got it down, you’ll never have to make a d/t mistake ever again – no exceptions!
The d/t rule
As stated above, the d/t rule is partially used to determine whether the past principle of a regular verb ends in a d or t. In Dutch, past principles are generally formed as follows:
ge + first person singular [present simple] + d or t
The ge- part is simple enough: it’s pretty much set in stone, at least in the common tongue – several regional accents tend to get rid of it altogether, but in Common Dutch, it’s very much there. The only time ge- is left out, is when the full verb already contains this prefix, or a similar one such as be- or ver-, such as the words vertellen (Eng: to tell) or geloven (Eng: to believe). There’s also instances where the ge- suffix is added in the middle of the word, but I’ll leave that out of the equation for now.
The first person singular form is the ik-vorm (Eng: I form, as in: a capital i). While for regular verbs in English, the first person singular is the same as the whole verb minus the to part, in Dutch, it’s the same as the stem, which we’ll talk about in a bit, sometimes with the addition of an extra vowel for pronunciation purposes.
That leaves us with the final part of this contraption: adding the d or the t.
‘t Kofschip (and more recent versions)
Let’s talk about the stem of a verb, shall we? It exists in many languages, and it’s very important in the d/t rule.
The stem (Dutch: stam) is the most basic version of any verb. In regular verbs, also called weak verbs in Dutch, the stem is the entire verb, minus the -en that all regular verbs end in. The stem of the verb werken is werk; the stem of the word raden is rad. If a verb has the same consonant in it twice before the final -en, for example in bellen (Eng: to call/phone), the stem only contains one of those, in this case bel.
Notice how sometimes the stem is the same as the present simple for the first person singular, which is used to form the past principle and the past simple, but sometimes it‘s lacking an added vowel. This is a consequence of Dutch pronunciation rules, and the fact that our first person singular isn’t the same as our full verb, as is the case in English.
Here’s the fun part: the last letter of the stem determines whether a d or a t is added. For this, there is another very simple, albeit slightly elaborate rule:
If the stem of a regular verb ends in a k, f, s, c, h, p, or x, then a -t is added to complete the past principle. If the stem ends in any other consonant, a -d is added. For an explanation on why I left out the t in this list for now, see the important notes at the end of this paragraph).
The formerly common rule that every Dutch person above the age of 30-ish has learned in school, is to use the term ‘t kofschip, or ‘t fokschaap, because it has all the consonants mentioned above in it, and no others. Since the letter x is making its way into Dutch more and more (thank you, English speakers), the word taxikofschip is now commonly used.
A kofschip is an old Dutch word for a certain type of ship, also called a koff in English. The ‘t part is short for het (Eng: the), the article for neuter nouns. Again, see the notes below for why I left it out initially.
Need one in English to remember more easily? I just came up with Ship it, ex-KFC!, but feel free to come up with your own ideas.
Two important notes:
- The taxikofschip rule only talks about consonants. The vowels have to be ignored, they’re just there to make the mnemonic (ezelsbruggetje or literally small donkey bridge in Dutch) a bit easier. Regular verb stems ending in a vowel always get a -d – this doesn’t happen often, but it does in words like skiën (Eng: to ski).
- While the t is in our taxikofschip rule, it doesn’t mean another t is added to the past principle: it simply means no d is added. The same goes for a stem ending in d, but the other way around. The t will become more important when we start talking about the past simple in a bit.
Some examples:
- verb: werken – stem: werk – past principle: gewerkt
- verb: bellen – stem: bel – past principle: gebeld
See? The k is in taxikofschip, but the l isn’t.
Past simple
The past simple (ik werkte, Eng: I worked) is used in Dutch on a regular basis, albeit slightly less often than it is in English, and you’ll be happy to know that a very similar rule applies to it than does to the past principle, about which you now know pretty much everything there is to know. The past simple of the first person singular, in regular verbs, is formed thusly:
first person singular [present simple] + -de or -te
Basically, it’s the same as the past principle, without the ge- prefix, and with an extra e added at the back. Whether -de or -te is added is determined in exactly the same way as it is with the past principle: if the stem ends in one of the taxikofschip consonants, -te is added; if not, it’s -de.
The slight difference is that if the stem ends in a d or t, this time, another d or t will in fact be added.
Examples:
- verb: werken – first person singular [present simple]: werk – past simple: werkte
- verb: bellen – first person singular [present simple]: bel – past simple: belde
- verb: praten – first person singular [present simple]: praat – past simple: praatte
For this last one, the extra a in the middle solely exists for pronunciation purposes, which is why in the original rule, we don’t use the stem, but the present simple in the first person singular to come up with the answer. We do, however, use the stem to determine whether a d/de or t/te should be added; there are some words where the stem ends in a different letter than the first person singular form, for example:
verb: suizen – stem: suiz – first person singular [present simple]: suis – past simple: suisde.
Because the stem ends in a z, which is not featured in taxikofschip, we use the -d/-de, even though the final form ends up with an s in it. This is one of the reasons why even native Dutch speakers make a lot of mistakes with this rule, but if you simply force yourself to ignore the present simple and always use the stem to determine whether it’s a d or a t, and then switch back to the present simple to create the past simple or past principle, you’ll never ever go wrong. Period.
A word about the -dt contraption
With all these ds and ts flying around, you might be wondering why you come across words ending in -dt so often. This is an even simpler rule, although because the end result might look a bit silly (yup, it does to us, too), it’s often simply ignored or not cared about by Dutchies, while to others, who do care about it, it seems like an easily avoidable mistake.
As you may know, in the present simple, the second person singular (hij/zij/het, Eng: he/she/it) form of regular verbs gets a t added to the first person singular form – just like you would add an s in English (zij loopt, Eng: she walks) – unless there already is one there at the very end of it.
If the stem, or the first person singular, ends in a d, this rule is still applied:
verb: raden – stem: rad – second person singular [past simple]: raadt (added pronunciation vowel)
Even if it looks a bit odd, just apply the rules, and go with your answer. It’ll be right. Always!
Long story shordt
The d/t rule is one of the most annoying rules for Dutch speakers, but while most of them will gladly tell you how much they hate it, it’s kind of a simple one in the end. Although the initial rule has some quirkiness to it, once you’ve got it into your system, making mistakes is simply impossible if you apply it correctly.
Make sure to use the stem of the verb, rather than the first person singular, to determine whether to add a d or a t to the past principle, or -de(n) or -te(n) to the past simple. Keep the extra pronunciation vowel in mind, and figure out whether you can leave the ge- prefix out of the equation or not, and you’ll never ever have to make what is easily the most common Dutch grammar mistake of all time.
