Laten is one of the busiest verbs in Dutch, and English has nothing that quite matches it. In one word it covers to let (permit), to make/have someone do something (causative), and to leave (something somewhere). It is the engine behind laten zien (to show), laten weten (to let know), and laten vallen (to drop). Grammatically it is a strong verb with the past liet / lieten and participle gelaten — but its most important trick is that in the causative it takes a bare infinitive and forms its perfect with a second infinitive, not a participle: Ik heb het laten repareren, never gelaten repareren. That double-infinitive twist is where most learners stumble, so it gets its own section below.
Principal parts
| Infinitive | Simple past (sg.) | Past participle | Perfect auxiliary |
|---|---|---|---|
| laten | liet | gelaten | hebben |
Classification: strong. The vowel changes through the principal parts — laten → liet → gelaten (the ablaut class of slapen → sliep → geslapen and laten's cousin raden → ried/raadde). The participle keeps the ge- prefix and the strong -en ending. The perfect auxiliary is hebben when laten stands as a full verb (Ik heb mijn jas in de trein gelaten — I left my coat on the train).
Present tense
| Person | Form | English |
|---|---|---|
| ik | laat | I let |
| jij / je | laat | you let |
| u | laat | you let (formal) |
| hij / zij / het | laat | he / she / it lets |
| wij / we | laten | we let |
| jullie | laten | you (pl.) let |
| zij / ze | laten | they let |
The stem is laat (with the long aa spelled double in a closed syllable). All three singular persons share laat; the -t of jij/hij is already there, swallowed into the spelling because the stem ends in -t. When jij follows the verb, nothing changes: laat jij? stays laat — there is no extra -t to drop.
Laat je de hond even uit?
Will you take the dog out for a bit? Inverted 'je' — the form stays 'laat'.
Simple past: liet and lieten
The past is strong: singular liet, plural lieten. The vowel shifts to ie, and the doubled t of the plural keeps the short vowel sound.
| Person | Past form |
|---|---|
| ik / jij / u / hij / zij / het | liet |
| wij / jullie / zij (pl.) | lieten |
Hij liet me twintig minuten in de regen wachten.
He kept me waiting in the rain for twenty minutes. Strong past 'liet' in the causative 'me ... laten wachten'.
The perfect — two faces
Here is the heart of the page. Laten forms its perfect two different ways depending on what it is doing.
1. Full verb (= to leave) → participle gelaten. When laten means to leave something somewhere, the perfect is ordinary: hebben + gelaten.
Ik heb mijn telefoon thuis gelaten.
I left my phone at home. Full verb 'leave' → real participle 'gelaten'.
2. Causative (= to let / have done) → bare infinitive laten (IPP). When laten governs another verb — laten repareren, laten zien, laten vallen — the perfect uses hebben + two infinitives, and laten appears as an infinitive, not a participle. This is the Infinitivus Pro Participio (IPP), the same "infinitive instead of participle" rule that hits the modal verbs (Ik heb moeten werken).
| Person | Perfect (causative) | English |
|---|---|---|
| ik | heb laten repareren | I have had (it) repaired |
| jij / u | hebt laten repareren | you have had (it) repaired |
| hij / zij / het | heeft laten repareren | he/she/it has had (it) repaired |
| wij / jullie / zij | hebben laten repareren | we/you/they have had (it) repaired |
We hebben de auto laten repareren.
We had the car repaired. Causative IPP — TWO infinitives 'laten repareren', NEVER 'gelaten'.
Imperative
The imperative is the bare stem laat. It is extremely common as a softened suggestion — laat ons gaan (let's go), more often laten we gaan with the plural form.
| Form | Use | English |
|---|---|---|
| Laat! | singular command | Let it! / Leave it! |
| Laat maar. | everyday phrase | Never mind / forget it. |
| Laten we gaan. | first-person plural ("let's") | Let's go. |
Three model sentences
Laat me even nadenken.
Let me think for a second. 'laten' = permit/allow, with a bare infinitive 'nadenken'.
Kun je me de foto's even laten zien?
Can you show me the photos? 'laten zien' (let see) is the everyday Dutch verb for 'to show'.
Pas op, niet laten vallen!
Careful, don't drop it! 'laten vallen' (let fall) = 'to drop' — Dutch has no single verb for it.
Common Mistakes
❌ Ik heb de auto laten gerepareerd.
Incorrect — the governed verb is a bare infinitive, not a participle: 'laten repareren'.
✅ Ik heb de auto laten repareren.
I had the car repaired.
❌ We hebben het huis gelaten schilderen.
Incorrect — in the causative perfect 'laten' is an infinitive (IPP), never 'gelaten'.
✅ We hebben het huis laten schilderen.
We had the house painted.
❌ Hij liette de deur open.
Incorrect — 'laten' is strong; the past is 'liet', not a regularised 'liette'.
✅ Hij liet de deur open.
He left the door open.
❌ Kun je me het laten zie?
Incorrect — the governed verb stays a full infinitive: 'laten zien', not 'zie'.
✅ Kun je me het laten zien?
Can you show me?
❌ Laten we te gaan.
Incorrect — 'laten' takes a bare infinitive with no 'te': 'Laten we gaan'.
✅ Laten we gaan.
Let's go.
Key Takeaways
- Strong verb: laat · liet / lieten · gelaten, auxiliary hebben.
- All three singular persons are laat; inversion does not add or drop a -t.
- Laten takes a bare infinitive: laten zien, laten vallen, laten repareren — no te.
- The perfect splits: gelaten only when laten means to leave alone; in the causative it is the IPP infinitive laten
- a second infinitive (heb het laten repareren).
- High-value combinations to memorise as units: laten zien (show), laten weten (let know), laten vallen (drop), laten maar / laat maar (never mind).
Now practice Dutch
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Start learning Dutch→Related Topics
- Verb Reference: How to Use These TablesA2 — A guide to reading the verb-reference pages: what each conjugation table shows (present, simple past, perfect with its auxiliary, participle), how strong/weak/mixed verbs are labelled, why the auxiliary is flagged, and which verbs to master first.
- Causative Laten (and Doen)B2 — How laten + infinitive collapses English let, make, and have-something-done into a single verb, plus the literary doen-causative and the double-infinitive perfect.
- The Double Infinitive (Infinitivus pro Participio)B2 — Why modals and verbs like laten, zien, horen and helpen appear as a bare infinitive — not a participle — in the perfect, producing a double infinitive, and the unusual verb-cluster order it forces.
- Strong Verbs: Vowel Change in the PastB1 — How Dutch strong verbs form the simple past by changing the stem vowel, and how their past participle ends in -en — including the singular/plural vowel split that most resources leave out.
- Strong and Irregular Verbs: Master Reference TableB2 — A single scannable reference table of the most common Dutch strong, irregular, and mixed verbs — infinitive, simple past (singular and plural), past participle, auxiliary, and English — grouped by ablaut pattern so the regularities behind the irregulars become visible.