Advanced Concessive Constructions

Concession is the relation of "even so" — you grant a point, then push past it. Although it was raining, we went anyway. At B1 you learned the workhorse hoewel ("although"), and that is enough to be understood. But fluent Dutch has a whole arsenal of concessive constructions, each with its own word order and its own register, and the differences are not decorative — choosing the wrong one, or getting its word order wrong, marks you instantly as a learner. This page covers the advanced set: the verb-final subordinators hoewel and ofschoon; the inversion-triggering al; the powerful hoe/wat/wie ... ook pattern that English renders as "however/whatever/whoever"; the preposition ondanks with its noun phrase; and the formal flourishes zij het and niettegenstaande. The thread running through all of them is what each one attaches to and where the verb lands.

Hoewel and ofschoon: the verb-final baseline

The plain concessive subordinators are hoewel and its more formal twin ofschoon (both = "although"). They are ordinary subordinating conjunctions, which means they introduce a clause and send the finite verb to the end of that clause. Ofschoon is (formal) / (literary) — you meet it in essays and older prose; hoewel is the everyday choice.

Two things to lock in. First, because the concessive clause is subordinate and verb-final, when it comes first, the following main clause begins with its finite verb (inversion) — the whole subordinate clause fills the voorveld. Second, the optional toch ("nonetheless") in the main clause is the natural Dutch echo that reinforces the concession; it is idiomatic, not redundant.

Al + inversion: "even if / even though"

Here is the construction English speakers most reliably get wrong. Al introduces a concession meaning "even if / even though" — but unlike hoewel, it is not followed by verb-final order. Instead, al triggers inversion: the finite verb comes immediately after al, before the subject. The pattern is al + finite verb + subject + ....

Why inversion here? Al in this use behaves like a fronted element that throws the verb into second position — the same V2 logic that governs main clauses. Think of it as parallel to a fronted adverb: just as Morgen ga ik... inverts, so does Al ben je moe, .... The fixed collocation al ben je nog zo + adjective ("however [adjective] you are") is worth memorising whole: al ben je nog zo slim ("however clever you are"), al is het nog zo klein ("however small it is").

Hoe / wat / wie ... ook: "however / whatever / whoever"

This is the most powerful concessive pattern in Dutch, and it has a precise architecture. A question word (hoe, wat, wie, waar, wanneer, welke) opens the clause, the clause runs verb-final, and the little word ook lands inside the clause to give the "-ever" meaning. The skeleton is [question word] + ... + ook + ... + [verb at the end].

• hoe ... ook = "however / no matter how" (with an adjective/adverb: hoe moeilijk het ook is)
• wat ... ook = "whatever / no matter what"
• wie ... ook = "whoever / no matter who"
• waar ... ook = "wherever"; wanneer ... ook = "whenever"

Two precision points. First, the clause is verb-final — it is subordinate, so the verb closes it, exactly as after hoewel. Second, the ook is obligatory: it is the morpheme that turns the question word from a real question into the "-ever" concessive. Drop it and you've written a question, not a concession. Hoe moeilijk het is asks "how hard is it?"; hoe moeilijk het ook is means "however hard it is." With hoe + adjective, note the order: hoe + adjective come together at the front (hoe moeilijk, hoe duur, hoe vaak), then the rest of the clause, then ook, then the verb.

Ondanks vs ondanks dat: preposition vs clause

Ondanks ("despite / in spite of") is a preposition, so it takes a noun phrase, not a clause: ondanks de regen, ondanks alles, ondanks zijn leeftijd. This is the crucial contrast with hoewel, which takes a clause. They map onto the English split exactly: despite the rain (noun) versus although it was raining (clause).

When you need ondanks to govern a whole clause, you bridge it with dat: ondanks dat + verb-final clause. This is widespread and accepted in modern Dutch, though some style guides flag it as informal and prefer hoewel; the fully formal equivalent is ondanks het feit dat ("despite the fact that").

Zij het and niettegenstaande: the formal flourishes

Two more, both decidedly (formal) / (literary). Zij het is "albeit" — a compact concessive tag tucked into a sentence, often before an adjective or short phrase: een goede oplossing, zij het een dure ("a good solution, albeit an expensive one"). It is the fossilised subjunctive of zijn ("be it") and never inflects.

Niettegenstaande ("notwithstanding") is heavily formal, even legal. It works both as a preposition (+ noun phrase) and, with dat, as a subordinator. In everyday Dutch you would say ondanks or hoewel; reserve niettegenstaande for legal and very formal administrative prose.

Common Mistakes

Key Takeaways

• Hoewel / ofschoon ("although") are subordinators: clause + verb-final; ofschoon is (formal).
• Al ("even if / even though") triggers inversion — al
  • finite verb
    • subject (al ben je moe) — never verb-final like hoewel.
• Hoe / wat / wie ... ook ("however / whatever / whoever") is verb-final and the ook is obligatory — it's the morpheme that creates the "-ever" meaning.
• Ondanks is a preposition (+ noun phrase: ondanks de regen); bridge to a clause with ondanks dat (or formal ondanks het feit dat).
• Zij het ("albeit") and niettegenstaande ("notwithstanding") are (formal) / (literary) flourishes — recognise them, deploy them sparingly.