Just like any self-respecting language, Dutch has fairly common words for basic bodily actions like walking, sitting, and standing. Unlike many of those languages, the Dutch like to use them as auxiliary verbs, even when it makes no sense whatsoever to do so. Here’s how it works, and why it can get so confusing for non-native speakers.
Before you dive head-first into this post, it might be a good idea to read the one about the Dutch present continuous first.
If you’ve just started to learn Dutch, you might want to skip this one for now, because it’s a bit of a deep-dive. In fact, I’m going to assume you speak a fair bit of Dutch already if you decide to continue reading. The reason for this is that there’s no real way to translate these sentences I’m going to mention as examples into English in a literal way using the same fake-auxiliary verb – it just doesn’t makes sense.
Want more basic info on Dutch verbs? Check out this cheatsheet!
What are auxiliary verbs?
Many languages use auxiliary verbs to give additional meaning to another verb. In Dutch, they’re called hulpwerkwoorden (literally: helping verbs). They’re quite similar among languages that use them: it’s often ones like doen (Eng: to do) or zijn (Eng: to be).
The Dutch use them a lot as well, but we like to be a tad more creative with them. Three of them stand out, as they wouldn’t make a lot of sense as an auxiliary verb, but are used as such quite a lot in a colloquial way – and they’re nicely tucked together in the I’m doing something with my body category. They are:
- zitten (Eng: to sit)
- staan (Eng: to stand)
- lopen (Eng: to walk)
The good part? They’re often interchangeable without changing the meaning of the sentence. The bad part? Nothing about the following will make any sense.
Here’s a sentence you’ll hear often enough when children are around:
Je zit te klooien (Eng: You’re not paying attention / you’re being annoying)
Klooien is a kind of slang for doing something you’re not supposed to be doing, especially in a classroom, like drawing questionable images in your study book or pulling the hair of the girl in front of you. The above sentence can also mean: you keep making silly mistakes, for example when you keep losing money during a game of poker due to bad decisions. Either way, you have to stop doing it.
While you can perfectly klooi whilst seated, this sentence can also be said to you when you’re standing, or even when you’re on the move. Similarly, even when you’re seated, it can be transformed to:
Je loopt te klooien
This literally means: you’re being annoying whilst walking, but that doesn’t make sense, especially when you’re sitting or standing perfectly still.
In these cases, the sitting/standing/walking is just a meaningless auxiliary verb meaning you’re busy doing something. It has nothing to do with the actual action of sitting/standing/walking, it’s merely a substitute for any given meaningless auxiliary verb.
Other notable examples:
- Hij loopt de hele tijd te mokken (Eng: He’s been complaining about everything the whole time)
- Je staat te slapen (Eng: You’re not paying attention, literally: you’re busy sleeping)
- Wat zit je nou te doen?! (Eng: What are you doing?!) (read more about nou in this post)
All of these examples can be used regardless of whether the other person is actually standing, sitting, or walking, and oftentimes, one of the others can easily be swapped in.
Meezitten/tegenzitten
A special version of zitten can be found in the words meezitten and tegenzitten. While mee usually means along, as in to come along with someone, and tegen usually means against, you can slap both of them in front of zitten to create two entirely new meanings, that both have to do with luck. Something can meezitten, which mean luck is on your side, or tegenzitten, meaning your luck is running out. Zitten has nothing to do with the physical act of sitting here either, it’s just another random way of using it.
These are also examples of a contraption called separable verbs, or scheidbare werkwoorden, which means they can be split up when used in the present or past simple:
Het zit je niet mee (Eng: You’re not very lucky)
Het zat een beetje tegen (Eng: Things were a bit unlucky)
More about separable verbs can be found in the post about scheidbare werkwoorden.
Long story short
Actually, this wasn’t the longest story, but it sure is one of the strangest. The Dutch like to use a set of verbs that usually mean performing a physical action, such as sitting, standing, or walking, as a meaningless auxiliary verb that basically just means being busy doing something. In a literal sense, it makes no sense whatsoever, but to us, it’s very natural.
If you’re ever accused of sitting to be annoying by a Dutch person, try not to frown at them too much, for they merely mean you’re busy being annoying. And if you really feel like you’ve got this down, I dare you to go lopen te kijken to this satirical video about the whole “walking to do something” contraption.
