Hebben: To Have | Dutch Grammar

Hebben ("to have") is the second pillar of Dutch, standing right beside zijn. It carries possession (Ik heb een auto), it is the default helper for building the perfect tense of nearly every verb (Ik heb gegeten), and it powers a cluster of everyday idioms that English stubbornly expresses with be — Ik heb honger, literally "I have hunger," for "I'm hungry." That last point is the single biggest aha of beginner Dutch and gets a table of its own below. This page covers the working forms and uses; the complete paradigm sits on the verb reference page for hebben.

The present tense

Like zijn, hebben is irregular — but only mildly. Four forms, with one spot (hij heeft) that surprises beginners.

Person	Form	English
ik	heb	I have
jij / je	hebt	you have
u	hebt (also: heeft)	you have (formal)
hij / zij / het	heeft	he / she / it has
wij / we	hebben	we have
jullie	hebben	you (plural) have
zij / ze	hebben	they have

The shape to fix in memory: heb for ik, hebt for jij and u, heeft for the third-person singular, and hebben for all plurals. The odd one out is heeft: a regular verb would give *hebt in the third person, but hebben swaps in the long-vowel stem heeft. That irregularity is exactly where English speakers slip.

Ik heb een auto.

I have a car. The 'ik' form is 'heb'.

Hij heeft honger.

He's hungry. (Literally 'he has hunger'.) Third-person singular: 'heeft'.

Heb je tijd?

Do you have time? / Have you got a minute? Inverted 'je' question — 'heb je', no -t.

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The jij form loses its -t after the verb, exactly like other verbs: je hebt → heb je? But the third-person heeft never changes: it's heeft hij?, not *heeft hij losing anything.

Pronunciation note: heb sounds like "hep"

A spelling-versus-sound trap worth flagging early. The form heb is written with b, but at the end of a word Dutch devoices final consonants, so heb is pronounced "hep," with a p sound. The b reappears in spelling because the plural stem is hebb- (hebben), and Dutch keeps the underlying letter. Same logic: ik heb sounds like "ik hep," but you always write heb. (The general rule is on Final Devoicing in Spelling if you want the full story.)

The simple past: had and hadden

Two forms, split by number — singular had, plural hadden.

Person	Past form
ik / jij / u / hij / zij / het	had
wij / jullie / zij (plural)	hadden

We hadden geluk met het weer.

We were lucky with the weather. (Literally 'we had luck'.) Plural past: 'hadden'.

Ik had geen idee.

I had no idea. Singular past: 'had'.

Note again the have/be mismatch hiding in the first example: geluk hebben ("to have luck") is Dutch for "to be lucky." More on that pattern below.

Hebben as the default perfect auxiliary

To build the perfect tense ("I have eaten," "she has worked"), Dutch uses a helping verb plus a past participle. For the vast majority of verbs, that helper is hebben:

Ik heb gegeten.

I have eaten / I ate. Auxiliary 'heb' + participle 'gegeten'.

Zij heeft de hele dag gewerkt.

She worked all day. 'heeft' + 'gewerkt'.

Hebben jullie de film al gezien?

Have you (all) seen the film yet? 'hebben ... gezien'.

This mirrors English, where have is the universal perfect helper — but with one big difference. English uses have for everything, including "I have been" and "I have gone." Dutch reserves zijn for verbs of motion and change of state (ik ben gegaan, ik ben geweest), and uses hebben for the rest. So hebben is the default, not the universal; the split is detailed on Hebben vs Zijn as the Perfect Auxiliary. The participle of hebben itself, when you need the perfect of "to have," is gehad: Ik heb honger gehad ("I was hungry," literally "I have had hunger").

Ik heb gisteren hoofdpijn gehad.

I had a headache yesterday. Perfect of 'hebben': 'heb ... gehad'.

The have-vs-be idioms: a systematic mismatch

Here is where Dutch and English part ways most visibly. A whole set of physical and mental states that English frames with be + adjective are framed in Dutch with hebben + noun. You do not "be hungry"; you "have hunger." This is not a handful of exceptions — it is a consistent pattern worth learning as a block:

Dutch (hebben + noun)	Literally	English (be + adjective)
honger hebben	to have hunger	to be hungry
dorst hebben	to have thirst	to be thirsty
het koud hebben	to have it cold	to be cold (a person)
het warm hebben	to have it warm	to be hot (a person)
gelijk hebben	to have right	to be right
haast hebben	to have haste	to be in a hurry
geluk hebben	to have luck	to be lucky
slaap hebben	to have sleep	to be sleepy
zin hebben (in)	to have desire (for)	to feel like / fancy

Ik heb honger — zullen we wat eten?

I'm hungry — shall we get something to eat? 'honger hebben', not 'zijn'.

Doe een trui aan als je het koud hebt.

Put on a sweater if you're cold. Note the fixed 'het': 'het koud hebben'.

Je hebt gelijk, sorry.

You're right, sorry. 'gelijk hebben' = to be right.

Why the difference? You can read it as Dutch treating these states as something you possess for the moment — a quantity of hunger, a portion of luck, a bit of cold — rather than a quality you are. English happens to have collapsed most of these into adjectives (hungry, thirsty, lucky), while Dutch kept the older "have a thing" framing that English itself once used too (compare archaic English "I have hunger"). The fuller set, with register notes and the temperature subtlety (ik heb het koud = the person feels cold; het is koud = the weather is cold), lives on Hebben Idioms.

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The temperature pair is worth pinning down now: Ik heb het koud = "I feel cold" (about you), with the obligatory het; Het is koud = "It's cold" (about the weather), with zijn. Different verb, different meaning.

Common Mistakes

❌ Hij hebt een nieuwe fiets.

Incorrect — third-person singular is 'heeft', not 'hebt'. ('hebt' belongs to jij/u.)

✅ Hij heeft een nieuwe fiets.

He has a new bike.

❌ Ik ben honger.

Incorrect — this is the classic calque of 'I am hungry'. Dutch uses 'hebben': 'Ik heb honger'.

✅ Ik heb honger.

I'm hungry.

❌ Jij heeft gelijk.

Incorrect — 'heeft' is third person; 'jij' takes 'hebt': 'Jij hebt gelijk'.

✅ Jij hebt gelijk.

You're right.

❌ Wij had geluk.

Incorrect — plural past is 'hadden', not 'had'.

✅ Wij hadden geluk.

We were lucky.

❌ Ik ben koud.

Incorrect when you mean you feel cold — that's 'Ik heb het koud'. ('Ik ben koud' would mean you are a cold-natured person, or literally cold to the touch.)

✅ Ik heb het koud.

I'm cold.

Key Takeaways

Present: ik heb, jij/u hebt, hij/zij/het heeft, wij/jullie/zij hebben. The trap is heeft for third-person singular.
After the verb, jij drops the -t: je hebt → heb je?.
heb is spelled with b but pronounced "hep" (final devoicing); always write the b.
Past: singular had, plural hadden; participle gehad.
Hebben is the default perfect auxiliary (ik heb gegeten) — but zijn takes over for motion and change verbs.
A systematic set of states uses hebben + noun where English uses be + adjective: honger, dorst, gelijk, haast, het koud hebben. Learn them as a block.

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