Lesson 8 — Your first verbs

The simple regular verbs in this lesson have three forms in the present tense. Compare English work / works with Dutch werk / werkt / werken. In the sentences below, the subject comes before the verb.

Remove -en to find the stem: werken → werk.

With ik (I), use the stem: ik werk — I work.

With jij (you, singular), hij (he), zij (she) and u (you, formal), add t: jij werkt, hij werkt, zij werkt, u werkt. Notice that Dutch adds t after jij and u too. Say u werkt, not u werken.

With wij (we), jullie (you, plural) and zij (they), use the whole verb, also called the infinitive: wij werken, jullie werken, zij werken. The word zij can mean either she or they; the verb form helps you tell them apart.

So there are three forms: werk, werkt, werken. The same pattern applies to luisteren (to listen): luisteren → luister; ik luister, jij luistert, wij luisteren.

Today we practise only these simple verbs. Later, we will look at verbs whose stems need a spelling change.