English turns a verb into a noun with -ing: "Swimming is healthy," "after eating," "I'm tired from walking." Dutch does the same job, but instead of a suffix it reaches for the bare infinitive plus the article het. Het zwemmen is gezond, na het eten, Ik ben moe van het lopen. Any infinitive at all — lezen, roken, wachten, opstaan — can be promoted to a full noun this way, and the result is always neuter, always het, no matter what gender the related noun has. This is the cleanest correspondence English and Dutch share in this corner of the grammar: where English writes -ing as a noun, Dutch writes het + infinitive. The trick is remembering that the het is obligatory, and that the present participle in -end is not the tool for this job, even though it looks like the -ing form.
The basic nominalization
Put het in front of any infinitive and you have an abstract action noun — "the act of _-ing."
Het zwemmen is gezond.
Swimming is healthy. — 'het zwemmen' is the subject, an action noun.
Het roken is hier verboden.
Smoking is forbidden here. — 'het roken' = the activity of smoking.
Het wachten duurde veel te lang.
The waiting took far too long. — 'het wachten' behaves like any neuter noun.
Because the result is a genuine noun, it does noun things: it can be a subject (as above), an object, or sit after a preposition. It is always neuter, so any article, adjective or pronoun agreeing with it takes neuter forms: het lange wachten ("the long wait"), dat eindeloze wachten ("that endless waiting").
The big one: prepositions where English uses -ing
This is where the construction earns its keep. After a preposition, English uses the -ing form ("after eating", "before sleeping", "on entering"). Dutch uses preposition + het + infinitive — and this is the standard, everyday way to express it, far more common than any participial alternative.
Na het eten gingen we wandelen.
After eating / after dinner, we went for a walk. — 'na het eten' is the default 'after -ing'.
Voor het slapengaan poetst ze altijd haar tanden.
Before going to sleep she always brushes her teeth. — 'voor het slapengaan', the normal 'before -ing'.
Bij het binnenkomen rook ik meteen verse koffie.
On entering / when I came in, I immediately smelled fresh coffee. — 'bij het binnenkomen'.
Ik ben moe van het lopen.
I'm tired from walking. — 'van het lopen', cause expressed with 'van' + nominalized infinitive.
Notice that na het eten doubles as "after eating" and "after dinner" — the nominalized infinitive het eten is also the ordinary Dutch noun for "the meal / dinner." That overlap is a happy accident you can lean on: many of these action nouns have hardened into everyday vocabulary (het eten = food/meal, het wonen = living/dwelling, het reizen = travelling).
A short menu of the high-frequency frames English speakers should drill:
| Dutch frame | English |
|---|---|
na het
| after _-ing |
voor het
| before _-ing |
bij het
| on / while / when _-ing |
tijdens het
| during _-ing |
met het
| by / with _-ing |
van het
| from _-ing (cause) |
door het
| by _-ing (means) |
Tijdens het koken luistert hij graag naar de radio.
While cooking he likes to listen to the radio. — 'tijdens het koken'.
Door het oefenen werd ze steeds beter.
By practising she kept getting better. — 'door het oefenen' for the means.
Separable verbs stay whole
When you nominalize a separable verb, the prefix does not split off the way it does in a finite clause. The infinitive is one word, so the nominalization is one word too: opstaan → het opstaan, binnenkomen → het binnenkomen, uitgaan → het uitgaan, slapengaan → het slapengaan.
Het opstaan valt me zwaar in de winter.
Getting up is hard for me in winter. — 'het opstaan', the separable prefix stays attached.
Het uitgaan is hier veel goedkoper dan in de stad.
Going out is much cheaper here than in the city. — 'het uitgaan', one word.
This is the opposite of what happens in a finite clause, where the prefix flies to the end (Ik sta om zeven uur op). In the nominalized form there is no finite verb to push the prefix away, so it sits where it belongs, glued to the front. See nouns/nominalization for how this fits the wider system of turning verbs and adjectives into nouns.
Why not the -end participle?
English speakers reach for the -end present participle here because it looks like -ing: lopend "walking", etend "eating". This is a trap. The -end form is an adjective/adverb in Dutch — it modifies a noun or describes how an action is done — and it cannot serve as the subject or object of a sentence the way the English -ing gerund can.
Het lopen is goed voor je hart.
Walking is good for your heart. — nominalized infinitive as subject. NOT 'het lopend'.
So Walking is healthy is Het lopen is gezond, never Het lopend.... The -end form does exist and is useful — een lopende band ("a conveyor belt", literally "a running belt"), al etend ("while eating", adverbially) — but as the name of an activity, Dutch uses the infinitive with het, full stop. Compare also the aan het progressive (verbs/progressive/aan-het), which uses the same nominalized infinitive inside it: Ik ben aan het lopen is literally "I am at the walking."
Common Mistakes
❌ Zwemmen is gezond, maar ik vind het lopen leuker.
Inconsistent — as a sentence subject the activity needs 'het': 'Het zwemmen is gezond'.
✅ Het zwemmen is gezond, maar ik vind het lopen leuker.
Swimming is healthy, but I find walking more fun.
❌ Na eten gingen we wandelen.
Incorrect — the article is obligatory: 'na het eten', not bare 'na eten'.
✅ Na het eten gingen we wandelen.
After dinner we went for a walk.
❌ Ik ben moe van het lopend.
Incorrect — the '-end' participle can't be a noun; use the infinitive: 'van het lopen'.
✅ Ik ben moe van het lopen.
I'm tired from walking.
❌ Het op staan valt me zwaar.
Incorrect — the separable verb stays one word when nominalized: 'het opstaan'.
✅ Het opstaan valt me zwaar.
Getting up is hard for me.
❌ Voor het slapen gaan poetst ze haar tanden.
Best written as one word: 'voor het slapengaan' (the separable infinitive is one word).
✅ Voor het slapengaan poetst ze haar tanden.
Before going to sleep she brushes her teeth.
Key Takeaways
- Het
- infinitive turns any verb into a neuter action noun: het zwemmen, het wachten, het roken. The het is obligatory in running prose.
- The result is always neuter, regardless of any related noun's gender.
- After a preposition, het
- infinitive is the standard "after/before/while/by _-ing": na het eten, voor het slapengaan, bij het binnenkomen, van het lopen.
- Separable verbs stay one word: het opstaan, het uitgaan, het slapengaan.
- Do not use the -end participle as a gerund — that form is an adjective/adverb, not a noun.
Now practice Dutch
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Start learning Dutch→Related Topics
- Turning Words into Nouns (Nominalization)B2 — Dutch turns verbs and adjectives into nouns by reliable routes, each with a fixed gender: the nominalised infinitive (always het — het roken, het zwemmen), the -ing deverbal (always de — de opening), the -heid abstract (always de — de schoonheid), and the adjective-as-noun for people and concepts (de zieke, het goede).
- The Progressive: Aan het + Infinitive and Positional ConstructionsB1 — Dutch has several optional ways to stress that an action is in progress — aan het + infinitive, the posture verbs zitten/staan/liggen te, and bezig zijn — but none is obligatory, because the plain present already covers ongoing action.
- The Te-Infinitive: OverviewB1 — When a second verb takes the infinitive marker te and when it stays bare — modals and gaan/komen/laten/zien/horen/blijven take a bare infinitive, most other governing verbs require te.
- The Infinitive as Instruction (Niet roken)B1 — Why Dutch signs, notices and recipes use a bare infinitive — Niet roken, Deur sluiten, 200 gram suiker toevoegen — instead of an imperative, and how this 'sign and recipe register' works.