Dutch borrows enthusiastically — especially from English — but it doesn't leave its loans alone. A borrowed word is dragged into the Dutch grammatical machine: it gets a Dutch plural, a Dutch diminutive, and, if it's a verb, a full Dutch conjugation built on Dutch spelling rules. The result is forms that look bizarre to an English eye (geüpdatet, baby's, ik download) but are perfectly regular once you see that Dutch is simply applying its own rules to a foreign stem. This page covers how that works, and lists the loan-verb participles that even native speakers second-guess.
English nouns take Dutch plurals and diminutives
A borrowed noun behaves like any Dutch noun: it gets de or het, a Dutch plural, and a Dutch diminutive.
Most English loans take the -s plural (which conveniently matches English), and crucially do not keep any English plural irregularity:
de manager → de managers
manager → managers (regular -s, exactly as you'd hope).
Onze nieuwe managers beginnen volgende maand.
Our new managers start next month.
But when a word ends in a long vowel sound spelled with a single vowel letter — a, i, o, u, y — Dutch adds the plural -s with an apostrophe, to stop the syllable from "closing" and shortening the vowel. This is the open/closed-syllable rule reaching into loanwords.
de baby → de baby's
baby → babies (apostrophe-s: babys would misread; baby's keeps the y long).
de hobby → de hobby's, de A4 → de A4'tjes
hobby → hobbies; the apostrophe protects the final long vowel.
Ze hebben twee baby's en allebei veel hobby's.
They have two babies and both have lots of hobbies.
Note the contrast: manager ends in a consonant, so plain -s (managers); baby ends in a single vowel letter, so apostrophe -s (baby's). The apostrophe is doing the same job the doubled consonant does in native words — protecting vowel length across an ending.
Diminutives of loans follow the Dutch -tje/-je system too: de baby → het baby'tje, de app → het appje.
English verbs conjugate by Dutch rules
This is where loans look strangest and where English speakers most often go wrong. A borrowed verb is conjugated entirely by Dutch rules — present tense, past tense, and past participle — on top of the English stem.
Take downloaden ("to download"). Strip the Dutch infinitive ending -en to get the stem download, and conjugate:
| Form | Dutch | English |
|---|---|---|
| ik (present) | ik download | I download |
| hij (present) | hij downloadt | he downloads (stem + t) |
| past sg. | ik downloadde | I downloaded (stem ends voiced → -de) |
| participle | gedownload | downloaded |
Ik download het bestand nu, ik heb het gisteren ook al gedownload.
I'm downloading the file now; I already downloaded it yesterday too.
The participle gedownload has the Dutch ge- prefix and, because the stem already ends in -d, no extra -d or -t is added (Dutch never doubles a final consonant in the participle). The past tense downloadde doubles the d in writing — stem download + past ending -de — exactly as a native verb like redde would.
Other everyday loan verbs work identically:
Heb je me het rapport al gemaild?
Have you emailed me the report yet? (mailen → gemaild).
Hij heeft de hele avond zitten gamen en daarna de game geüpdatet.
He spent the whole evening gaming and then updated the game.
The loan-verb participles people genuinely doubt
Here Dutch is honestly hard, and natives disagree or hesitate. The official spellings exist; they just look odd. The two rules that decide the final letter:
- Past participle = ge-
- stem + t or d.
- A trema or apostrophe protects a vowel collision at the ge- seam.
| Infinitive | ik (present) | past sg. | past participle |
|---|---|---|---|
| downloaden | ik download | downloadde | gedownload |
| mailen | ik mail | mailde | gemaild |
| updaten | ik update | updatete | geüpdatet |
| uploaden | ik upload | uploadde | geüpload |
| saven (informal) | ik save | savede | gesaved |
Look closely at the contrast that catches everyone: geüpdatet ends in -t but geüpload ends in -d. Why? Because the stem of updaten ends in a "t" sound (up-date, voiceless), so the participle takes -t; the stem of uploaden ends in a "d" sound (up-load, voiced), so it takes -d — and since upload already ends in -d, nothing extra is added. Same prefix problem, opposite ending.
Ik heb het bestand geüpload en de software geüpdatet.
I uploaded the file and updated the software. (note: -d vs -t, by the sound of the stem)
The trema in geüpdatet and geüpload is essential: the ge- prefix meets a u-, and geu would be read as a single Dutch sound (as in keuken). The trema on the ü forces a fresh syllable: ge-ü-pload. This is the same trema logic as in geïnstalleerd and coördinatie.
The -tie ending: Dutch for English -tion
A huge family of Latin-derived words maps cleanly between the languages: English -tion corresponds to Dutch -tie, and English -sion often to -sie. Once you see the pattern you can convert hundreds of words on sight.
| English | Dutch |
|---|---|
| information | informatie |
| nation | natie |
| situation | situatie |
| television | televisie |
Voor meer informatie over de situatie kun je de site bekijken.
For more information about the situation you can check the site.
These are all de-words and take -s in the plural: informaties is rare (it's usually uncountable), but naties, situaties are regular. Related to this is the c/k variation in loans: Dutch keeps c before e, i, y (where it's an "s" sound: centrum, cijfer) and before some learned roots, but uses k where the sound is hard and the word is well naturalised — cultuur keeps its c, while many older borrowings have gone fully to k (kopie, kritiek). There's no single switch here; it's lexical, and a dictionary is the final word.
Common Mistakes
The headline error is forgetting that the English root keeps its spelling but everything attached to it must be Dutch — endings, prefix, apostrophe, trema.
❌ Ik heb het bestand ge-update.
Incorrect — English root with no Dutch participle ending and a stray hyphen.
✅ Ik heb het bestand geüpdatet.
I updated the file. (ge- + trema + stem + -t)
❌ Ik heb je gisteren ge-maild.
Incorrect — the simple verb mailen takes a normal ge- prefix, no hyphen.
✅ Ik heb je gisteren gemaild.
I emailed you yesterday.
❌ Ze hebben twee babys.
Incorrect — a single final vowel letter needs the apostrophe to stay long.
✅ Ze hebben twee baby's.
They have two babies.
❌ twee managers' / twee manager's
Incorrect — a consonant-final loan takes plain -s, no apostrophe.
✅ twee managers
two managers.
❌ Hij heeft het bestand geupload.
Incorrect — geu- would merge into one sound; the trema is required.
✅ Hij heeft het bestand geüpload.
He uploaded the file.
Key Takeaways
- Root stays foreign, endings go Dutch. Borrow update, but conjugate it the Dutch way: ik update, updatete, geüpdatet.
- Plurals: plain -s after a consonant (managers); apostrophe -s after a single final vowel letter (baby's, hobby's) to keep the vowel long.
- Loan-verb participles = ge-
- stem + t/d by the voiceless/voiced rule: geüpdatet (-t, voiceless stem) vs geüpload (-d, voiced stem); gedownload, gemaild. A trema breaks the geü- vowel collision.
- English -tion = Dutch -tie (information → informatie); -sion often → -sie (television → televisie).
- The c/k choice in loans is lexical — cultuur keeps c, kopie takes k; check a dictionary when unsure.
Now practice Dutch
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Start learning Dutch→Related Topics
- The Trema and the ApostropheB1 — The trema (ë ï ö ü) breaks a vowel sequence into separate syllables so it isn't misread as a digraph — coördinatie, reünie, ruïne — while the apostrophe forms plurals of vowel-final words (foto's, baby's) and certain genitives (Anna's auto). Both are grammatical, not decorative.
- C, K, Qu, X and Foreign Spelling PatternsB2 — How Dutch handles the borrowed letters c, k, qu, x and y, and two systematic loanword endings: -tie answers English -tion (natie, informatie) and -isch answers English -ic (logisch, said '-ies'). Includes the c→k nativisation that gives kritiek but kritisch.
- Writing Compounds: One Word, Hyphen, or SpaceB1 — Dutch writes compounds as a single closed word — verkeerslicht, ziekenhuis — with linking -s- or -en- glue, and reserves the hyphen for clashing vowels, abbreviations, and equal-status pairings.
- Spelling D/T and V/F, Z/SA2 — Why you write hond (not hont), hij wordt (with a silent t), and brief (not brieve) — Dutch spells the underlying consonant recovered from a related form, even when you can't hear it.
- Loanword Sounds and Foreign PhonemesC1 — Pronouncing borrowed sounds outside the native Dutch inventory — French nasals and soft g, near-English business loans, and how c, q, x, y behave in foreign words.