Dutch news writing has a recognisable grammatical fingerprint: the worden-passive that keeps actions in focus without naming an actor, a compressed nominal style, long verb-final subordinate clauses, and two distinct tools for attributing information to a source — volgens ("according to") and the rumour-distancing zou … hebben ("is said to have"). This page presents an original news-style paragraph and decodes each feature, so you can read a Dutch newspaper or news site and know exactly how much the journalist is committing to.
The text
Door het noodweer van afgelopen weekend is op meerdere plaatsen in het land schade ontstaan.
The severe weather last weekend caused damage in several places across the country. (lit. 'damage arose')
Volgens de brandweer werden tientallen bomen ontworteld en raakten verschillende wegen geblokkeerd.
According to the fire brigade, dozens of trees were uprooted and several roads became blocked.
In de provincie Limburg, waar de meeste regen viel, moesten enkele kelders worden leeggepompt.
In the province of Limburg, where the most rain fell, several cellars had to be pumped out.
Een woordvoerder liet weten dat de schade nog niet volledig in kaart is gebracht.
A spokesperson said that the damage has not yet been fully assessed. (lit. 'mapped out')
De storm zou volgens het KNMI de zwaarste zijn die in juni ooit is gemeten.
According to the KNMI, the storm is said to be the heaviest ever recorded in June.
Het treinverkeer werd urenlang stilgelegd, waardoor duizenden reizigers vertraging opliepen.
Rail traffic was halted for hours, leaving thousands of travellers delayed.
De gemeente heeft inwoners opgeroepen voorlopig binnen te blijven.
The municipality has called on residents to stay indoors for the time being.
Naar verwachting zal het herstel van de schade enkele weken in beslag nemen.
The damage is expected to take several weeks to repair. (lit. 'the repair … will take up several weeks')
What's happening grammatically
The worden-passive, the engine of news prose
News writing reaches for the passive constantly, because the interesting thing is usually the event, not who caused it. The present/past passive is worden ("to become") + past participle: …*werden tientallen bomen ontworteld* ("dozens of trees were uprooted"), Het treinverkeer *werd stilgelegd ("rail traffic was halted"). Here *werden/werd is the simple-past of worden — the journalistic narrative tense. The agent, if given, takes door ("by"): the opening sentence frames the cause as Door het noodweer… ("by the severe weather").
Tientallen bomen werden ontworteld.
Dozens of trees were uprooted. (past passive: 'werden' + participle 'ontworteld')
Enkele kelders moesten worden leeggepompt.
Several cellars had to be pumped out. (modal 'moesten' + passive infinitive 'worden leeggepompt')
Nominal style: actions packed into noun phrases
Journalese, like officialese, compresses verbs into nouns to save space and sound authoritative: het herstel van de schade ("the repair of the damage", not "after the damage is repaired"), het treinverkeer ("rail traffic"), de schade in kaart brengen ("to map the damage"). The phrase in beslag nemen ("to take up [time]") and in kaart brengen ("to assess / map out") are fixed nominal idioms you'll meet endlessly in the press. Decoding them means unpacking the compound: noodweer = nood (emergency) + weer (weather); woordvoerder = woord (word) + voerder (one who leads/conducts) = "spokesperson".
Het herstel van de schade zal enkele weken in beslag nemen.
Repairing the damage will take several weeks. (nominal 'het herstel' + idiom 'in beslag nemen')
Complex verb-final subordinate clauses
News sentences stack subordinate clauses, each verb-final. …dat de schade nog niet volledig in kaart is gebracht sends the whole verb cluster to the end of the dat-clause. Relative clauses with waar and die do the same: …in Limburg, *waar de meeste regen viel, … and …de zwaarste die ooit is gemeten*. And waardoor ("as a result of which") links a consequence: …*waardoor duizenden reizigers vertraging opliepen*, verb at the end.
Een woordvoerder liet weten dat de schade nog niet in kaart is gebracht.
A spokesperson said the damage has not yet been assessed. ('dat'-clause → verb cluster 'is gebracht' at the end)
Het verkeer werd stilgelegd, waardoor duizenden reizigers vertraging opliepen.
Traffic was halted, leaving thousands delayed. ('waardoor' → consequence clause, verb 'opliepen' final)
Reported speech: volgens vs. zou … hebben
Dutch journalism marks the source of a claim very precisely, and this is where careful reading pays off.
volgens ("according to") simply attributes information to a source, without casting doubt on it: Volgens de brandweer…, Volgens het KNMI…. The fact is reported as reliable; the journalist just names where it came from.
zou + infinitive (the conditional of zullen) is the journalist's distancing device: it signals that the claim comes from someone else and the paper is not vouching for it. De storm *zou … de zwaarste zijn* = "the storm is said to be / reportedly is the heaviest" — reported, not confirmed. For a past claim you get zou … hebben/zijn + participle: Hij *zou het geld hebben gestolen* ("he allegedly stole the money"). English does this with "allegedly" or "is said to have"; Dutch does it grammatically with zou.
Volgens de politie is niemand gewond geraakt.
According to the police, no one was injured. ('volgens' = sourced but presented as fact)
De verdachte zou het geld hebben weggesluisd.
The suspect allegedly siphoned off the money. ('zou … hebben' + participle = reported, not confirmed)
Dates, numbers and quantities
The press writes the date as day-month-year and reads 3 mei as "de derde mei". Approximate quantities use tientallen ("dozens", literally "tens"), enkele / verschillende ("several"), duizenden ("thousands"). Note urenlang ("for hours on end"), built from uren (hours) + lang (long) — a productive pattern: dagenlang, wekenlang. Big round numbers in body text are often spelled out or given with a thousands separator using a point (1.000), while decimals take a comma (3,5 graden).
Duizenden reizigers liepen vertraging op.
Thousands of travellers were delayed. ('duizenden' = thousands; separable 'oplopen' splits in the main clause)
Vocabulary and phrase note
High-frequency news verbs and idioms:
- ontstaan — "to arise / come about" (schade is ontstaan = "damage occurred").
- stilleggen — "to bring to a standstill / shut down" (separable: werd stilgelegd).
- oproepen — "to call on / urge" (inwoners opgeroepen binnen te blijven).
- laten weten — "to let it be known / announce" — the standard attribution verb.
- in kaart brengen — "to map out, assess"; in beslag nemen — "to take up (time/space)".
- naar verwachting — "as expected / it is expected that".
Register note
This paragraph is in neutral journalistic register (formal/academic-adjacent): impersonal passives, nominal compression, precise sourcing with volgens and zou. It is deliberately detached — no ik, no opinion, no chatty particles. That detachment is the register. A tabloid or a live blog would loosen it (shorter sentences, the occasional direct quote, more je-address to the reader), while a formal report or scientific summary would tighten it further still (more nominalisation, even fewer finite verbs). When you write in this register, resist the urge to add ik vind or gelukkig — the news voice keeps the writer invisible.
Common Mistakes
❌ Tientallen bomen werden ontworteld geworden.
Incorrect — the past passive is just 'werden' + participle; never add a second 'geworden'.
✅ Tientallen bomen werden ontworteld.
Dozens of trees were uprooted.
❌ De schade is in kaart gebracht geworden.
Incorrect perfect passive — drop 'worden/geworden' entirely: 'is in kaart gebracht'.
✅ De schade is in kaart gebracht.
The damage has been assessed.
❌ De dader zou het geld gestolen heeft.
Wrong order — in 'zou … hebben' + participle the cluster goes to the end: 'zou het geld hebben gestolen' (or 'gestolen hebben').
✅ De dader zou het geld hebben gestolen.
The perpetrator allegedly stole the money.
❌ Volgens de brandweer tientallen bomen werden ontworteld.
Word order — after a fronted 'Volgens…'-phrase the main clause is V2, so the verb comes next: 'Volgens de brandweer werden tientallen bomen ontworteld.'
✅ Volgens de brandweer werden tientallen bomen ontworteld.
According to the fire brigade, dozens of trees were uprooted.
❌ Een woordvoerder liet weten dat de schade is nog niet in kaart gebracht.
Incorrect — inside the 'dat'-clause the verb cluster must go to the end: 'dat de schade nog niet in kaart is gebracht'.
✅ Een woordvoerder liet weten dat de schade nog niet in kaart is gebracht.
A spokesperson said the damage has not yet been assessed.
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