Question 1

Why does loopt have two 'o's when the full verb is lopen?

Accepted Answer

This is a great example of the open and closed syllable spelling rules. In the full verb lopen (to walk), the first syllable is open (lo-pen), so a single 'o' already makes a long sound. When we chop off the -en to find the verb stem, we are left with a closed syllable. To keep that long 'o' sound, we have to double the vowel to make loop, and then we add the -t for the "het kind" form to get loopt.

Question 2

Both kind and hond end in 'd'. Are they pronounced like the English 'd'?

Accepted Answer

No, in Dutch, whenever a 'd' is at the very end of a word, it is pronounced like a 't'. So kind sounds like "kint" and hond sounds like "hont". You only hear the true 'd' sound when the word gets longer and the 'd' starts a new syllable, such as in the plural form honden.

Question 3

Why does the sentence use het for kind but de for hond?

Accepted Answer

Dutch has two different words for "the": de and het. Every noun belongs to one of these two categories, and you mostly just have to memorize which article goes with which word. Kind (child) happens to be a "het-word" and hond (dog) is a "de-word".

Question 4

Why doesn't the word snel get a special ending like the English adverb "quickly"?

Accepted Answer

In English, we usually add "-ly" to turn an adjective (quick) into an adverb (quickly) that describes an action. In Dutch, you don't need to change the word at all! The base word snel is used for both the adjective "quick" and the adverb "quickly.

Het kind loopt snel naar de hond.

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