Kopen (to buy) — Full Conjugation | Dutch Grammar

Kopen ("to buy") is one of the first verbs a learner needs — you can't shop, order, or talk about money without it — and it is a mixed verb of the same -cht family as brengen and denken. Its past is kocht, a near-perfect echo of English buy → bought. Because kopen turns up constantly in everyday conversation, its irregular past is worth drilling at the A2 stage even though the present tense is entirely regular.

Principal parts

Infinitive	Simple past (sg.)	Past participle	Perfect auxiliary
kopen	kocht	gekocht	hebben

Classification: mixed. The stem vowel shifts from the long oo of the present to the short o of kocht, and the past takes the dental -cht ending rather than the -de/-te of a true weak verb. A vowel change plus a dental ending is the signature of the mixed class — the very same shift gave English bought.

Present tense

Regular. Note the spelling: the infinitive kopen has one o (a long vowel in an open syllable), but the singular stem closes the syllable and so doubles the vowel to keep it long — koop, koopt.

Person	Form	English
ik	koop	I buy
jij / je	koopt	you buy
u	koopt	you buy (formal)
hij / zij / het	koopt	he / she / it buys
wij / we	kopen	we buy
jullie	kopen	you (pl.) buy
zij / ze	kopen	they buy

In inversion, jij drops the -t: koop jij?

Koop jij ook iets voor zijn verjaardag?

Are you buying something for his birthday too? Inverted 'jij' — 'koop', not 'koopt'.

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Mind the vowel-doubling rule, not the verb itself. The plural kopen keeps one o because the syllable is open; the singular koop / koopt needs two o's to keep the vowel long once the syllable closes. This is regular Dutch spelling, not an irregularity.

Simple past: kocht and kochten

The vowel shortens oo → o and the stem ends in -cht: singular kocht, plural kochten.

Person	Past form
ik / jij / u / hij / zij / het	kocht
wij / jullie / zij (pl.)	kochten

Ik kocht deze jas in de uitverkoop.

I bought this coat in the sale. Singular past 'kocht'.

Why "mixed" — and the English parallel

Kopen sits in the same hybrid box as brengen, denken, and zoeken, and the easiest way to remember it is through its English twin. Both kopen and buy inherited a Germanic past that changes the vowel and tacks on a -t: buy → bought, kopen → kocht. So the verb is neither fully strong (it would need a participle like gekopen, which doesn't exist) nor fully weak (it would give koopte / gekoopt, both wrong). It lands precisely in between, and the -cht ending is the tell.

This pays off as a prediction tool. Whenever an English verb has an -ought-style past (bought, brought, thought, sought), there's a strong chance its Dutch cognate ends in -cht too. Lean on that pattern instead of memorising each form in isolation.

The perfect: heeft gekocht

The participle is gekocht — the -cht stem in the ge-…-t frame. Auxiliary: hebben, since you always buy something.

Person	Perfect	English
ik	heb gekocht	I have bought
jij / u	hebt gekocht	you have bought
hij / zij / het	heeft gekocht	he/she/it has bought
wij / jullie / zij	hebben gekocht	we/you/they have bought

In everyday Dutch, the perfect ik heb gekocht is the normal way to report a past purchase — far more common in speech than the simple past ik kocht, which leans narrative or written.

Imperative

The bare stem koop is the everyday imperative.

Form	Use	English
Koop!	everyday (informal & neutral)	Buy!
Koop maar iets lekkers.	everyday phrase	Go ahead and buy something nice (to eat).
Koop niet de eerste de beste.	everyday advice	Don't just buy the first thing you see.

Three model sentences

We moeten nog brood en melk kopen.

We still need to buy bread and milk. Infinitive after the modal 'moeten'.

Ze heeft een tweedehands fiets gekocht.

She bought a second-hand bike. Perfect with the participle 'gekocht' — the natural way to report a purchase.

Vroeger kochten we alles op de markt.

We used to buy everything at the market. Plural past 'kochten' in a narrative 'used to' context.

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For "buy someone something," Dutch can drop the preposition just like English: Ik koop je een ijsje ("I'll buy you an ice cream"), or make it explicit with voor: Ik koop een ijsje voor je. Both are natural; the version with voor simply puts a little more weight on who it's for.

Common collocations and separable cousins

Kopen heads a useful cluster of compounds, all of which keep the kocht / gekocht core. The most frequent are inkopen (to buy in, to purchase as stock — and as a noun inkopen, "groceries/shopping"), verkopen (to sell — note the prefix flips the meaning to its opposite), opkopen (to buy up), and omkopen (to bribe). Verkopen is worth flagging twice: its prefix ver- is inseparable, so its participle has no ge- — verkocht, not geverkocht — even though it shares the same -cht past as kopen.

You'll also meet boodschappen doen (to do the grocery shopping) and winkelen (to shop, to browse) as everyday alternatives when no specific purchase is named — kopen always wants an object, whereas winkelen describes the activity itself.

Ze hebben hun oude huis eindelijk verkocht.

They've finally sold their old house. 'verkopen' — same -cht past, but participle 'verkocht' with no ge-.

Ik ga vanmiddag even boodschappen doen.

I'm going to do some grocery shopping this afternoon. The activity, when no specific item is named.

Common Mistakes

❌ Ik koopte een nieuwe telefoon.

Incorrect — kopen is mixed; the past is 'kocht', never the regularised 'koopte'.

✅ Ik kocht een nieuwe telefoon.

I bought a new phone.

❌ Wij kocht te veel.

Incorrect — the plural past is 'kochten', not 'kocht'.

✅ Wij kochten te veel.

We bought too much.

❌ Hij heeft een auto gekoopt.

Incorrect — the participle is 'gekocht' (the -cht stem), not 'gekoopt'.

✅ Hij heeft een auto gekocht.

He bought a car.

❌ Ik kope het morgen wel.

Incorrect — the ik-form is the bare stem 'koop' (with doubled vowel), not 'kope'.

✅ Ik koop het morgen wel.

I'll just buy it tomorrow.

Key Takeaways

Present is regular but doubles the vowel in the singular: ik koop, jij/hij koopt, wij/jullie/zij kopen; inversion gives koop jij?
Past is the -cht pattern: singular kocht, plural kochten — like English bought.
Participle gekocht, perfect auxiliary hebben: hij heeft gekocht (the usual way to report a purchase in speech).
Never regularise to koopte or gekoopt.

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