Talking about yourself in Dutch means giving numbers all the time: how old you are, how tall, how heavy, what shoe size you take, how warm it is outside. Two things trip up English and Romance-language speakers here. First, Dutch says age with the verb zijn ("to be"), like English — but unlike French, Spanish or Italian, which use "have." Second, the unit of measure stays singular after a number: dertig jaar, één meter tachtig, zeventig kilo — never the plurals you might expect. Master those two reflexes and the rest is just vocabulary.
Age: you are a number of years
To give an age, Dutch uses zijn plus the number. The word jaar ("year") is optional, and when it appears it stays singular — jaar, never jaren, after a count.
| Question | Answer (full) | Answer (short) |
|---|---|---|
| Hoe oud ben je? | Ik ben dertig jaar. | Ik ben dertig. |
| Hoe oud is hij? | Hij is vijf jaar. | Hij is vijf. |
The bare Ik ben dertig is the most natural everyday answer; Ik ben dertig jaar is also fine and slightly fuller. English-style "thirty years old" maps onto dertig jaar oud, which exists but sounds heavier and is mostly used when you want to stress the age explicitly (een dertig jaar oude man — a thirty-year-old man).
Hoe oud ben je? — Ik ben tweeëndertig.
How old are you? — I'm thirty-two. (bare number, no 'jaar' needed)
Mijn dochter is net vier geworden.
My daughter has just turned four.
Onze hond is al dertien jaar; dat is oud voor een labrador.
Our dog is already thirteen years old; that's old for a Labrador. (jaar stays singular)
Height: één meter tachtig
Height is given in metres and centimetres, written with a comma as the decimal point: 1,80 m. The spoken form drops the word "centimetre" entirely — you say één meter tachtig (one metre eighty), where tachtig is understood as the centimetres. The unit meter stays singular after the number.
Ik ben één meter tachtig.
I'm one metre eighty (1.80 m).
Hij is bijna twee meter; hij stoot overal zijn hoofd.
He's nearly two metres tall; he bangs his head on everything. (meter singular)
De deuropening is maar één meter negentig hoog.
The doorway is only one metre ninety high.
For very short measurements you can also give centimetres directly: honderdtachtig centimeter — but in conversation the meter + cijfers pattern is far more common for a person's height.
Weight: zeventig kilo
Weight is given in kilos. The everyday word is kilo (short for kilogram), and like the others it stays singular after a number: zeventig kilo, not kilo's. The verb is wegen ("to weigh").
Ik weeg ongeveer zeventig kilo.
I weigh about seventy kilos. (kilo stays singular)
De koffer mag maximaal drieëntwintig kilo wegen.
The suitcase may weigh twenty-three kilos at most.
De baby woog bij de geboorte drie kilo en tweehonderd gram.
The baby weighed three kilos two hundred grams at birth.
Note the plural kilo's (with apostrophe-s, the Dutch plural for words ending in a vowel) does exist — but only in uncounted contexts: Ik moet een paar kilo's afvallen ("I need to lose a few kilos"), where een paar triggers the plural the way it does in English. Straight after a number, it is singular.
Temperature: twintig graden, min vijf
Temperature uses graden ("degrees"), and here Dutch behaves differently from the units above: graden is plural by default — but it is a fixed plural, not something you vary. You say twintig graden, dertig graden, and even één graad in the singular for exactly one degree. For below-zero temperatures Dutch puts min ("minus") in front: min vijf = −5.
Het is vandaag een graad of twintig.
It's about twenty degrees today. ('een graad of' = roughly)
Vannacht wordt het min vijf, dus het vriest.
Tonight it'll be minus five, so it'll be freezing. (min = minus)
In de woestijn kan het overdag vijftig graden worden.
In the desert it can reach fifty degrees in the daytime.
Watch the contrast with the personal measures: jaar, meter and kilo are singular after a number, but graden is plural (with graad only for exactly one). This is an idiosyncrasy of the temperature word, so just memorise the pair één graad / twintig graden.
Sizes: maat 42
Clothing and shoe sizes use the noun maat ("size") followed by the number — and crucially, Dutch reads the size number as an ordinary cardinal, not with any English-style suffix. Maat 42 is read maat tweeënveertig.
Welke maat schoenen heb jij? — Ik heb maat tweeënveertig.
What shoe size do you take? — I take a size forty-two.
Deze trui zit te strak; heeft u hem ook in maat large?
This jumper is too tight; do you also have it in a large?
Common Mistakes
❌ Ik heb dertig jaar.
Incorrect — Romance calque; Dutch states age with 'zijn', not 'hebben'.
✅ Ik ben dertig (jaar).
I'm thirty (years old).
❌ Ik ben dertig jaren oud.
Incorrect — after a number 'jaar' stays singular; and 'oud' is usually dropped.
✅ Ik ben dertig jaar.
I'm thirty years old.
❌ Ik weeg zeventig kilo's.
Incorrect — straight after a number, 'kilo' is singular.
✅ Ik weeg zeventig kilo.
I weigh seventy kilos.
❌ Het is buiten twintig graad.
Incorrect — temperature takes the plural 'graden' (only exactly one is 'graad').
✅ Het is buiten twintig graden.
It's twenty degrees outside.
❌ Ik ben één meters tachtig.
Incorrect — 'meter' stays singular after a number.
✅ Ik ben één meter tachtig.
I'm one metre eighty.
Key Takeaways
- Age uses zijn, not hebben: Ik ben dertig (the bare number is the natural answer); Ik heb dertig jaar is a Romance calque and wrong.
- Measure nouns stay singular after a number: dertig jaar, één meter tachtig, zeventig kilo.
- Temperature is the exception: graden is the default plural (twintig graden), with graad only for exactly one degree; use min for below zero.
- Height is read as meter + centimetres (één meter tachtig), written with a comma (1,80 m).
- Sizes use maat
- a plain cardinal (maat tweeënveertig), no English-style suffix.
Now practice Dutch
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