Breakdown of Volgende maand maken wij ons eerste tentamen voor dit vak.
Questions & Answers about Volgende maand maken wij ons eerste tentamen voor dit vak.
Dutch often uses the present tense to talk about the (near) future when there is a clear time expression:
- Volgende maand maken wij ons eerste tentamen.
= Next month we will take our first exam.
The time phrase volgende maand already shows it’s in the future, so you don’t need a separate future tense.
You can also say:
- Volgende maand zullen wij ons eerste tentamen maken.
That’s grammatically correct but sounds a bit heavier or more formal. In everyday speech, the simple present with a time expression is more common.
Dutch main clauses follow the V2 rule: the finite verb (here: maken) must be in the second position of the sentence.
In this sentence:
- Volgende maand = first constituent (time phrase)
- maken = second position (the verb)
- wij = subject that comes after the verb
So:
- Volgende maand maken wij ons eerste tentamen. ✅
- Volgende maand wij maken ons eerste tentamen. ❌ (verb not in second position)
If you start with the subject, it changes:
- Wij maken volgende maand ons eerste tentamen. ✅
(Now wij is first, maken is second.)
Yes, that’s perfectly correct:
- Wij maken volgende maand ons eerste tentamen voor dit vak.
The meaning is the same; only the emphasis changes slightly.
Volgende maand maken wij…
→ Light emphasis on when (next month).Wij maken volgende maand…
→ Light emphasis on who (we).
Both word orders are common and natural. Dutch allows you to move time phrases like volgende maand around in the sentence as long as the finite verb stays in second position.
Dutch has two genders for nouns in practice:
- de-words (common gender)
- het-words (neuter)
The possessive pronouns change depending on that:
- Before de-words (singular): onze
- Before het-words (singular): ons
The noun tentamen is a het-word: het tentamen.
So you must use:
- ons tentamen
- ons eerste tentamen
Onze tentamen would be incorrect.
The order is fixed. In Dutch, the normal pattern is:
possessive → (other determiners/adjectives) → noun
So:
- ons eerste tentamen ✅
- mijn tweede tentamen ✅
- haar moeilijke tentamen ✅
You cannot say:
- eerste ons tentamen ❌
- tentamen ons eerste ❌
That would be ungrammatical.
These three words are related but not identical:
tentamen
Often: a college/university exam, typically for one course or part of a program.
(In the Netherlands, especially in academic contexts.)examen
More like a final exam, for example at the end of secondary school or at the end of a whole program:
eindexamen, rijexamen (driving test), etc.toets
A test, often smaller or more informal, common at school: a quiz, a chapter test, etc.
So ons eerste tentamen voor dit vak suggests:
- probably a higher-education context
- the first official exam for this course/subject.
Prepositions don’t map one-to-one between English and Dutch.
- In Dutch, when you talk about an exam for a course, you normally use voor:
- een tentamen voor dit vak
- een toets voor geschiedenis
- een examen voor Nederlands
Using in here would sound odd or foreign:
- een tentamen in dit vak ❌ (unnatural in standard Dutch)
English says an exam in this subject, but Dutch uses voor dit vak.
Again, it’s about de-words vs het-words.
- For de-words (common gender, singular): de, deze, die
- For het-words (neuter, singular): het, dit, dat
The noun vak is a het-word: het vak.
So the correct demonstratives are:
- dit vak = this subject
- dat vak = that subject
Deze vak would be wrong because deze goes with de-words.
Vak is a flexible word. In an educational context, it usually corresponds to:
- subject (school subject):
- Wiskunde is een moeilijk vak. → Mathematics is a difficult subject.
- course (at university/college):
- Ik volg drie vakken dit semester. → I’m taking three courses this semester.
It’s not typically used to mean a specific class meeting (the hour itself).
For that, Dutch might say les, college, or hoorcollege, depending on context.
So dit vak here is best understood as this course/subject.
Yes, you can. Dutch has three common ways to talk about the future:
Present tense + time expression
- Volgende maand maken wij ons eerste tentamen.
Zullen + infinitive
- Volgende maand zullen wij ons eerste tentamen maken.
Gaan + infinitive (more like “going to”)
- Volgende maand gaan wij ons eerste tentamen maken.
All three are grammatically correct.
The original sentence with simple present (maken) is very natural and common when the future time is clear.
In Dutch, with expressions like volgende week, volgende maand, volgend jaar, you normally don’t use:
- in
- or an article de/het
So you say:
- Volgende maand maken wij… ✅
- Volgend jaar verhuis ik. ✅
You could technically say in de volgende maand, but that sounds very formal or unnatural in everyday Dutch and doesn’t fit here. The natural version is simply volgende maand.
Yes, you can say:
- Volgende maand maken we ons eerste tentamen voor dit vak.
Wij and we both mean we, but:
- wij is the stressed form
- we is the unstressed form (more common in speech)
Use wij if you want to emphasize the subject:
- Niet zij, maar wij maken volgende maand ons eerste tentamen.
(Not them, but we are taking our first exam next month.)
In most neutral sentences, we is slightly more colloquial and frequent, but wij is always correct.
No comma is required here:
- Volgende maand maken wij ons eerste tentamen voor dit vak. ✅
In Dutch, you don’t normally put a comma between a short fronted time phrase and the main clause. A comma might appear with longer or more complex introductory phrases, but with a short one like Volgende maand, it’s standard to write it without a comma.