It’s hard to think of a language that doesn’t have filler words, and Dutch surely has tons of them. We call them stopwoorden, and they’re mostly used in speech, but they can appear in written texts as well; some are similar to their English counterparts, others are quite different. Here’s a (nowhere near complete) list of Dutch filler words, their meaning, and how to use them.
Filler words, or stopwoorden/stopwoordjes in Dutch (there’s the diminutive again! and the compound words, too!) exist in pretty much every language. While the actual words themselves do tend to mean something, they’re often used in a much less meaningful way. Dutch conversations are riddled with them, too, so it’s a good idea to learn some of them by heart, enabling you to recognize when an otherwise meaningful word is just slapped into a sentence for no apparent reason.
Let’s dive into some of the most common ones, shall we?
Hoor
Let’s start with the most obvious and easily the most rude one – seemingly, for while hoor may be pronounced pretty much exactly like a rather foul English word, it has absolutely nothing to do with it.
While hoor is the first person singular form in the present simple of the verb horen, meaning to hear, it’s much more widely used at the end of sentences, in which case it often means something like just so you know, just saying, or something along those lines.
I’ve done an entire post about hoor, which you can find here.
Nou
Nou is another one that’s used a lot, and another one I’ve already dedicated an entire post to. In its most basic form, it’s a colloquial version of nu, meaning now, as in: at the present time – it’s pronounced like that, too.
However, it’s used much more often as a word slapped seemingly randomly into a sentence. It’s used in sentences that mean something similar to English lines like So what?, Well…, That’s what I’m saying, Heck yeah!, and some other things.
Gewoon
Gewoon is probably the most normal word in Dutch – it literally means just that: normal, or average, or standard. Dutch speakers do use it quite a bit like that.
On top of that, it’s also often used as a filler word, often in similar situations where the English word just is used. You’ll find a lot more examples in the most gewone post on DutchDabbles.
Even
Turns out I’ve already covered quite a lot of these! Another one I’ve already done a post about is even, which, again, has a perfectly normal meaning, but is also often used as a filler. In its most basic form, it means for a short while, or even even as in opposition to odd.
Then again, you’ll also hear it thrown around a lot as a form of just – a bit like gewoon, but also very different. Even also comes in a variety of different spellings, so it’s worth checking out the full article.
Toch
Toch is a word that can be used in multiple ways, too. The most official way to use it is as a form of however, or regardless, or yet.
But toch is also often thrown in at the end of a sentence, turning it into a question. In these cases, it means the same as right? in English – pretty cool, toch?
Dus
Dus is a word that shares the same origin as the English word thus, but while thus is considered fairly archaic or at the very least somewhat official, the Dutch dus is totally for the common people.
We use it like you would use the English so in a sentence like Ik ben dus maar weggegaan (Eng: So I just left), but it can also be used in a more vague manner such as Ik ben dus helemaal niet moe (Eng: I’m totally not tired), in which case it doesn’t really mean anything at all, and can therefore easily be left out, too – which is kind of the point of filler words in the first place.
Maar
Keen eyes may have spotted another filler word in that last paragraph: maar. Maar usually means but, but it as you can see in the example above, it can also mean something like just.
Just like dus, it’s often thrown into a sentence for no apparent reason, and in these cases, it can easily be left out – and yet, we like to stick with it.
Eens
Eens is also a very common filler word that you’ll see and hear thrown around often. It means once, and it’s quite familiar to English speakers, for it’s used both in the meaning of at a certain point in time, often used at the beginning of fairytales (Er was eens…), as well as in only one instance (it also means: agreed!, but let’s not go there for now).
However, it’s also used in no more than two filler word contraptions. The first often shows up in the imperative mood, in which case it hardly means anything at all:
Schiet eens op! – Hurry up!
Word eens wakker – Wake up!
The second use of eens as a filler is in addition to the word niet, which means not, in which case it can often be translated to the English even:
Ik heb niet eens honger – I’m not even hungry
Sometimes, it’s also used with geen, which is another negation, in which case it’s attached directly to it:
Hij was er geeneens – He wasn’t even there
This last version is considered much more informal, and you won’t see it a lot in official texts.
Eigenlijk
Eigenlijk means actual(ly), and happily enough it does so in both of the common ways actual(ly) can be used in English. A sentence like Ik ben eigenlijk niet moe (Eng: I’m actually not tired) works (although there’s a slight semantic difference in meaning), and so does De eigenlijke reden ben ik vergeten (Eng: I have forgotten the actual reason), although this use is regarded a bit archaic, and we usually go with De echte reden (Eng: The real reason).
Zeg maar
Zeg maar is a filler word that’s also used a lot in speech. It’s sort of an imperative mood, zeg being the imperative form of zeggen, or to say; maar is, again, pretty much useless in this version.
Zeg maar is used as a form of pretty much, or so to speak, and people tend to throw it in front of adjectives a lot to dampen the potential harshness of the statement, or at the very least to downplay it somewhat. There’s a famous book on silly Dutch language things, written by Paulien Cornelisse, and it’s called Taal is zeg maar echt mijn ding (Eng: Language is, so to speak, really my kind of thing).
Filler words that English speakers use too
Even though some filler words mentioned thus far have some kind of English translation, it’s usually not really the same. There are a bunch, though, that we use pretty much exactly like English speakers use their versions of. Here’s a list of some of them:
weet je / weet je wel – you know?
soort van – kind of
echt – really
serieus – seriously
of zoiets – or something like that
en zo – and so on / and stuff
denk ik – I think
letterlijk – literally
It’s worth noting that since English is around everywhere these days, Dutch people have been using common English filler words quite a bit as well. For example:
anyway
like
whatever
right
Whatever. Long story, like, really short, you know?
It’s hard to hold everyday conversation in most Western languages without the use of filler words. Dutch speakers use them a lot, too. Some of them are similar to their English counterparts, or sometimes the English ones are even used themselves; other times, it’s difficult to come up with a proper translation.
Once you learn what the most common ones mean, and you feel comfortable using them yourself on occasion, a whole world of linguistic gems will open up. Nou, that’s dus the end of this post, I eigenlijk gewoon liked talking about filler words, zeg maar. It was pretty fun, toch?
