Zoeken (to search) — Full Conjugation

Zoeken ("to search, to look for") is the last of the core -cht mixed verbs, alongside brengen, denken, and kopen. Its past is zocht, the exact counterpart of English seek → sought. The cognate is a little hidden — modern English usually says "look for" rather than "seek" in everyday speech — but the irregular past is shared, and that shared -cht/-ought shift is your reliable memory hook. This page gives the full paradigm and the zoeken naar construction that learners need for "search for."

Principal parts

Classification: mixed. The stem vowel shortens from the long oe of zoeken to the short o of zocht, and the past takes the dental -cht ending of the weak system rather than the strong verb's bare vowel change. Vowel change plus dental ending = mixed, the same recipe behind English sought.

Present tense

Regular throughout. Stem zoek- plus the standard endings; the oe digraph stays intact in every present form.

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

Simple past: zocht and zochten

The vowel shortens oe → o and the stem ends in -cht: singular zocht, plural zochten.

Why "mixed" — and the family resemblance

Zoeken completes the -cht quartet — brengen, denken, kopen, zoeken — and shares their split personality: a strong-verb vowel change (oe → o) bolted onto a weak-verb dental -t. That is what "mixed" means, and it rules out both the weak guess (zoekte / gezoekt) and any imagined strong form. The correct forms are zocht / gezocht, period.

The English cognate is seek → sought. It feels less obvious than think → thought only because modern English has largely retired "seek" from casual speech in favour of "look for" — but the irregular past sought is alive and well, and it carries the same -cht/-ought signature. So the same prediction rule applies: where English has an -ought past, expect Dutch -cht. Recognising that turns four "irregular" verbs into one recognisable pattern.

The perfect: heeft gezocht

The participle is gezocht — the -cht stem in the ge-…-t frame. Auxiliary: hebben.

Imperative

The bare stem zoek is the everyday imperative — also exactly what you'd say to a dog fetching something.

Zoeken naar — "to search for"

Zoeken can take a direct object — Ik zoek mijn telefoon ("I'm looking for my phone") — but when you want to stress the activity of searching, Dutch uses zoeken naar ("to search for"). With a concrete lost object both are fine; with abstract goals (truth, a solution, words) the naar version is standard.

Common collocations and separable cousins

Zoeken heads a productive family of separable compounds, all keeping the zocht / gezocht core. The most useful are opzoeken (to look up — a word, a fact — or to visit/call on someone), uitzoeken (to figure out, to sort out), and bezoeken (to visit — inseparable be-, so participle bezocht with no ge-). Watch doorzoeken, which lives a double life: stressed on the prefix it is separable (dóórzoeken, "to keep searching," participle doorgezocht), but stressed on the stem it is inseparable (doorzóeken, "to search thoroughly, ransack," participle doorzocht with no ge-). Note too the meaning split between opzoeken iemand ("go visit someone") and opzoeken iets ("look something up").

There are also set phrases: zoeken en je zult vinden (the biblical "seek and you shall find"), iets te zoeken hebben ("to have business being somewhere," usually negative: Wat heb jij hier te zoeken? — "What are you doing here?"), and the warning dat heb je zelf gezocht ("you brought that on yourself," literally "you searched for that yourself").

Three model sentences

Common Mistakes

Key Takeaways

• Present is regular: ik zoek, jij/hij zoekt, wij/jullie/zij zoeken; inversion gives zoek jij?
• Past is the -cht pattern: singular zocht, plural zochten — like English sought.
• Participle gezocht, perfect auxiliary hebben: hij heeft gezocht.
• Never regularise to zoekte or gezoekt.
• Use zoeken naar for "search for" (never voor); it splits as ernaar / waar…naar with pronouns.