Annotated Dialogue: Renting an Apartment (B1)

Renting a flat in the Netherlands has its own dense vocabulary — bezichtiging, huur, borg, servicekosten, huurcontract — and one verb pair that catches almost every learner: huren ("to rent, as the tenant") versus verhuren ("to rent out, as the landlord"). Get them backwards and you've just offered to become someone's landlord. This page gives an original dialogue at an apartment viewing and unpacks the housing terms, the inclusief/exclusief distinction that decides what you actually pay, and the pronominal adverb erin ("into it").

The dialogue

M is the makelaar (letting agent); H is the would-be tenant (huurder).

What's happening grammatically

huren vs verhuren — the tenant/landlord trap

This is the page's central pitfall. Huren means "to rent" from the tenant's side — you pay money and take the place: Ik huur een appartement ("I'm renting a flat"). Add the prefix ver- and you flip the perspective: verhuren means "to rent out," from the landlord's side — they hand over the place and collect rent: De eigenaar verhuurt het appartement ("The owner rents out the apartment"). They are not interchangeable. The agent in our dialogue asks Verhuurt de eigenaar het gemeubileerd? because the owner is the one renting it out; the tenant would say Ik wil het huren.

inclusief vs exclusief — what you actually pay

When a price is quoted, the killer detail is whether the bijkomende kosten (extra costs — utilities) are in or out. Inclusief ("including") means the rent already covers them; exclusief ("excluding," often abbreviated excl.) means you pay them on top. 1.200 euro inclusief gas, water en licht is a very different deal from 1.200 euro exclusief. These adjectives sit right after the amount and govern what follows: inclusief servicekosten, exclusief internet. The phrase gas, water en licht (often shortened to gwl) is the fixed Dutch bundle for "utilities."

erin — the pronominal adverb "into it"

To talk about moving into the apartment, Dutch can't say in het with a stray pronoun the way you'd expect. When the preposition's object is a thing already mentioned ("it"), Dutch fuses er + the preposition into a pronominal adverb: er + in → erin ("into it / in it"). In Wanneer zou ik *er eventueel in kunnen? the *er and in split around the rest of the clause — er sits early, in goes near the verb cluster. The implied verb is erin kunnen ("to be able to get in / move in"). This split er … in is exactly the construction English lacks, and it derails learners who try to say in het or in hem.

When nothing splits them, the two parts join up as one word: Mag ik er even in? ("May I just get in?") versus the bare erin in Ik wil erin. The principle is constant: a thing ("it") after a preposition becomes er- + that preposition.

Prices, borg and the conditional zou

Prices are read with a thousands dot, not a comma: 1.200 euro = "twelve hundred euros" (the comma is reserved for decimals: 1,50 = one euro fifty). The borg ("deposit") is typically one to two months' huur; it's refundable, distinct from non-refundable agency fees. Throughout the viewing the tenant softens hypotheticals with the conditional zou ("would"): Wanneer zou ik er in kunnen?, U zou er al in kunnen — politely framing the move-in as a possibility rather than a fixed claim.

Vocabulary and phrase note

The renting toolkit:

• huren — to rent (tenant); verhuren — to rent out (landlord); de huurder — tenant; de verhuurder — landlord.
• de bezichtiging — the viewing; de woning / het appartement — the dwelling / apartment.
• de huur — the rent; de borg / de waarborgsom — the deposit; de servicekosten — service charges.
• het huurcontract / de huurovereenkomst — the lease; de opzegtermijn — notice period.
• inclusief / exclusief — including / excluding; gas, water en licht (gwl) — utilities.
• gemeubileerd / kaal — furnished / unfurnished (bare); per direct beschikbaar — available immediately.

Register note

A viewing with a makelaar runs in the polite u-register: Komt u verder, Zoekt u al lang …?, Hoeveel borg vraagt u? — professional but warm. Renting directly from a private landlord or moving in with friends drops to the informal je: Hoeveel huur vraag je?, Wanneer kan ik erin? The vocabulary (huur, borg, huurcontract, inclusief/exclusief, erin) is identical across registers — only the pronouns shift. One genuinely tricky point worth flagging: in advertisements you'll see the terse €1200 p/m excl. ("per month, excluding utilities"), and you must read excl. as a warning that the real monthly cost is higher. The Dutch rental market is competitive, so being able to ask crisply about borg, opzegtermijn and what's inclusief marks you as a serious tenant.

Common Mistakes