Elon.io is an online learning platform
We have an entire course teaching Dutch grammar and vocabulary.
Questions & Answers about Wij eten de boon rauw noch gekookt.
Why is there no niet in this sentence to make it negative?
The word noch (nor/neither) already carries a negative meaning. Just like in English, saying rauw noch gekookt makes the statement negative on its own, so adding niet would create an incorrect double negative.
I usually see this as a pair: noch... noch.... Is it normal to just use one?
Yes, while noch rauw, noch gekookt (neither raw nor cooked) is very common, you can drop the first noch when directly contrasting two adjectives or nouns. Using a single noch between two words is grammatically correct and gives the sentence a slightly formal or literary feel.
Since this lesson is about evenmin, could we use that word here instead?
Not in this exact structure. Noch is a conjunction linking two parallel words together, while evenmin is an adverb used to add to an already negative statement. To use evenmin, you would need to split the idea and add a separate negative: Wij eten de boon niet rauw, en evenmin gekookt (We don't eat the bean raw, and neither [do we eat it] cooked).
Why does the sentence use the singular de boon instead of the plural bonen?
In Dutch, using the singular definite article plus noun (de boon) is a stylistic way to refer to the food category, crop, or biological species as a whole, rather than one individual bean. It sounds a bit like saying "the potato" or "the soybean" in an English agricultural documentary.