Surviving the Open-Plan Office
Navigating a shared workspace means dealing with hot desks, quiet rooms, and a lot of shared supplies. When working closely with colleagues, you will often need to talk about mutual ownership and interacting with each other's belongings.
The Reciprocal Possessive: elkaars
You already know that the reciprocal pronoun elkaar means "each other". To say "each other's", you simply add an -s to the end, forming elkaars.
It works exactly like a regular possessive pronoun (such as mijn or zijn) and is placed directly before the noun it modifies. It does not change form, regardless of whether the noun that follows is singular or plural, de or het.
| In the open-plan office, we use each other's stuff. | In de kantoortuin gebruiken we elkaars spullen. |
| We put each other's mugs next to the coffee maker. | We zetten elkaars mokken naast het koffiezetapparaat. |
| We do not type on each other's keyboard, because that is dirty. | We typen niet op elkaars toetsenbord, want dat is vies. |
| We are sitting in the quiet room reading each other's documents. | We zitten in de stilteruimte elkaars documenten te lezen. |
| Did you take each other's office chair? | Hebben jullie elkaars bureaustoel gepakt? |
Swapping Things: van ... wisselen
If you want to suggest swapping seats, changing desks, or exchanging items with someone, Dutch uses the verb wisselen (to swap / to exchange) combined with the preposition van.
When using this specific structure (van + noun + wisselen), the item you are swapping is placed directly after van as a singular noun, without an article (de or het) in front of it.
| Shall we swap hot desks today? | Zullen we vandaag van flexplek wisselen? |
| We are not allowed to swap office chairs here. | We mogen hier niet van bureaustoel wisselen. |