You can never forget your Simple Past

 

You can never forget your simple past

"Draw your life with pencils instead of oil paints, so you can have the option to erase and correct it whenever and wherever it is necessary!" @tkktweets

You can have all the experiences in the past, that doesn’t make the past very simple.  The Simple past has its own rules.  The Dutch use the simple past tense to refer to an event that took place in the past. It is not only with the Dutch, all the people in world use some kind of simple past to express an event that took place in the past. Past cannot be forgotten we have to remember always something of the past. But if the rules are not followed, past things will not be understood as past.

There are a few guidelines that will help you to decide when to use the simple past. There can be three different cases:

n To refer to events that took place in the past and that do not have any relation to the present. 

n To describe what went on during a certain past event

n When we introduce past action or event by ‘toen’ (when)

 

-- Past event that do not have any bearing on the present

If the event or action is till relevant to the present time, they generally use the present perfect. The relevance to the present is, of course, highly subjective. It is important to know that when referring to the past events or action, the present perfect is much more common than simple past.

Karel the Grote regeerded van 800 tot 814

Charlemagne reigned from 800 until 814

 

The industriele revolutie begon in Engeland

The industrial revolution began in England

 

--Describing what went on during a past event

When we refer to an event that took place in the past all information surrounding that event is set in the simple past.

Dat was zo’n natte picknick vorig jaar, weet je no? Het regende pijpenstelen

That was a wet picknick last year, Do you remember? It was raining cats and dogs

 

Op zijn verjaardag feliciteerden we hem, zongen we een verjaardagsliedje en gaven we hem een Cadeau.

On his birthday we congratulated him, sang a birthday song, and gave him a present

 

Tijdens de kabinetscrisis was de premier op vakantie

During the cabinet crisis, the prime-minister was on vacation

 

To set the stage in the past, the Dutch usually use the present perfect.  All events and actions that follows are describe by the simple past

We zijn gisteren naar de bioscoop geweest en raad eens wie daar tegenkwamen?

We went to the cinema yesterday and guess we ran into?

 

We zijn dit jaar naar Slovenie op vakantie geweest. We verbleven eerst in een hotel in Ljublijna en darnaa logeerden we een week bij vrienden in the de buurt van het Bledmeer.

This year we went on vacation to Slovenia. First, we stayed in a hotel in Ljublijna and then, we stayed a week with friends near Lake Bled.

 

The following example already gives you a preview of the pluperfect (had verduisterd)

Er is veel commotie rond geweest. Ze zeiden dat hij het geld had veduisterd.

There has been a lot of commotion about it. They said that he had embezzled the money.

 

--Introducing a past action or event by ‘toen’ (when)

When we point to a past event by using ‘toen’ (when), we generally use the simple past tense. If we use the perfect tense at all, it must be the pluperfect

 

Toen ik wakker werd, scheen de zon volop

When I woke up, the sun was shiningly brightly.

 

Toen we terugkwamen van vakantie, schrokken we ons kapot; er liepen allemaal kakkerlakken in de badkamer!

When got backfrom vacation, we were really schocked: we had cockroaches in our bathroom

Toen je drie jaar werd, kreeg je een knuffelbeer met een grote rode hoed

When you turned three, you got a teddy bear with a huge red hat

 

Note that Dutch also use ‘toen’ as a translation of ‘then’. That is totally a different story

 

If you think learning simple past in a simple way will make you happy, you are wrong. Conjugations are there to make you really crazy!

Conjugations: It is like a bicycle. They have good break but no bells. Nobody is going to ring a bell if you are going in the wrong direction.  It is your duty to use the break if you don’t want to have any accidents in the usage of conjugations

There are ‘t’ verbs and t-verbs takes +te, +ten

Ik, je, hij---- (stem) +te   (singular)

Ik, je, hij ---merk+te   (merken = to notice)

We,jullie,ze ---(stem) + ten

We, jullie, ze …merk+ten

I wish if you understood my language construction above. They are just simple past

(To wish=wensen)

Ik,je,hij wenste  (wens+te) sing.

We, jullie, ze wensten (wens+ten) plu.

 

Don’t ask me where did I go wrong. Because you will be never right anywhere! Everyone has their own rules. You just need to adapt. Just adapt to the rules and start talking in the simple past!

 

Conjugation of a d-verb takes -de(n)

Ik, je, hij----stem--+de

Ik, je, hij –bloedde  (bloeden=to bleed)

We, jullie, ze bloedden (bloed+den)

Don’t forget the double ‘d’.  You don’t hear it, but you have to write, otherwise you are going to really bleed from misunderstanding.

 

But the funny thing about ‘bloeden’ is that;  ‘wij bloeden’ and ‘wij bloedden’, both are pronounced in the same way but to make it more complicated, the first one is a present tense and the second one is in the past.  So, when in writing if you miss one ‘d’ you may be talking about present instead of past!

 

I think you should take a bit of rest before proceeding to the next session!

But be careful when you use rest in Dutch  (rusten=to rest)

Ik, je, hij rustte  (rust+te)

We, jullie, ze rustten (rust+ten) you are not going to get any rest from this ‘rusten’ . You can say ‘rustten’ without even thinking about the double ‘t’ but when you write you have to write it with double ‘tt” otherwise you may not have good rest.

 

Let me take you down to the streams of simple past and I will take you with a boat. Let us row the boat.

Roeien (to row)

Ik,je,hij roeide (roei+de)

We, jullie, ze roeiden (roei+den) Don’t ask me about the rules. This is the rule.

 

Listen well while we are coming to the waterfall. We have no control

Luisteren (to listen)

Ik, je,hij luisterde (luister+de)

We,jullie, ze luisterden (luister+den)

Hello, we are talking about the simple past.

 

When you fall into the waterfall you have no time to kiss

Kussen( to kiss)

Ik,je,hij kuste (kussen to kuste) something is not right, one ‘s’ is lost in the fall.

 

But we have the option to borrow to make it better. I don’t know if it is for any better.

Lenen (to borrow)

Ik,je,hij leende (Leen+de) (lenen to leende) They say that the stem of lenen is ‘leen’. Yes of course we have no choice, what they say is the rule. You just have to follow.

We, jullie, ze leenden (leen+den)

So what we have lost in the ‘kussen’(kusten) we got back in the (lenen) ‘leenden’

 

Don’t spent too much time and money on learning all these little things. Just follow the rules then you are fine, and keep in mind there are no real common rules, If a Dutch person said that rule, you have to follow that, if another Dutch person said something else you have to follow that. And all in all, you will be following all the rules and you will be fluent in Dutch.  But the Dutch will be still looking at you as if they have no clue whatsoever what you are talking about.

Leave everything to the past and live in the present!