Breakdown of Tom is aan het leren voor zijn eerste tentamen Nederlands.
Questions & Answers about Tom is aan het leren voor zijn eerste tentamen Nederlands.
“is aan het leren” is the Dutch present continuous, like English “is studying / is learning.”
Structure: zijn + aan het + infinitive
- Tom is aan het leren = “Tom is (in the middle of) studying.”
“Tom leert” is the simple present:
- “Tom studies / Tom learns (in general).”
Both can be used, but “is aan het leren” emphasizes that the activity is going on right now, while “leert” can sound more general or habitual, depending on context.
No. English -ing covers more uses than Dutch “aan het”.
Use “zijn + aan het + infinitive” mainly when:
- The action is ongoing and fairly concrete:
- Ik ben aan het koken. = “I’m cooking (right now).”
Avoid it:
- With many stative verbs:
- Not: Ik ben aan het weten…
- When English uses -ing as a noun or adjective:
- “Swimming is fun.” → Zwemmen is leuk. (not aan het zwemmen)
- “A sleeping child.” → Een slapend kind.
So it works well for “Tom is studying” → Tom is aan het leren, but it’s not a one‑to‑one match for every English -ing form.
In Dutch you study/learn for an exam using “voor”:
- leren voor een tentamen = to study for an exam
- zich voorbereiden op een tentamen = to prepare for an exam (different verb, different preposition)
Other prepositions would be wrong here:
- naar (leren naar een tentamen) – incorrect
- om (leren om een tentamen) – incorrect in this meaning
So the natural combination is leren voor een tentamen.
Both relate to study, but their use differs:
leren = to learn / to study (for a test, learning content)
- Tom is aan het leren voor zijn tentamen.
studeren = to study in the sense of being enrolled in higher education or doing academic study in a field:
- Tom studeert Nederlands. = Tom is studying Dutch (as his field of study, e.g. at university).
If you say:
- Tom studeert voor zijn eerste tentamen – understandable, but less natural than leren voor zijn tentamen. Native speakers usually say leren or blok(ken) (slang).
“zijn” is the possessive pronoun “his”:
- Tom → zijn eerste tentamen = Tom’s first exam.
It agrees with the possessor (Tom), not with the noun tentamen.
If the person were female, some speakers might prefer haar (her), but Dutch often uses zijn generically in informal speech when the gender is unknown or not emphasized.
So:
- Tom is aan het leren voor *zijn eerste tentamen.*
- Anna is aan het leren voor *haar eerste tentamen.*
“eerste” is the ordinal number “first” used as an adjective.
In Dutch, adjectives before a noun with a determiner (like a possessive: zijn) usually get -e:
- zijn eerste tentamen
- mijn grote huis
- haar nieuwe auto
So the correct form here is eerste, not eerst.
(eerst is used in other roles, e.g. adverb: Eerst ga ik eten – “First I’m going to eat.”)
“tentamen Nederlands” literally means “exam Dutch” and is understood as
“an exam in the subject Dutch” (i.e. the Dutch language course).
This is a very common pattern for school/university subjects:
- tentamen wiskunde = math exam
- tentamen geschiedenis = history exam
- tentamen Nederlands = Dutch (language) exam
“Nederlands tentamen” is grammatically possible but sounds unusual; it would be interpreted more like “a Dutch exam” (perhaps contrasted with a French exam), not specifically “exam in Dutch as a subject.” The standard, idiomatic phrasing is tentamen Nederlands.
Both are types of tests, but with different typical uses:
tentamen
- Usually at universities / colleges
- Often for a specific course or part of a course
- Plural: tentamens or more formal tentamina
examen
- Can be final exams, official exams (e.g. high school final, driving test), or larger assessment moments
- Everyday speech uses examen more broadly than tentamen
In schools (not university) you may also hear:
- toets, proefwerk = test
In the sentence, tentamen Nederlands suggests something like a university-style course exam in Dutch.
In Dutch, names of languages and nationalities used as nouns or adjectives are capitalized:
- Ik leer Nederlands.
- Hij is Duits.
- een *Franse film*
So Nederlands is capitalized.
Regular adjectives and numbers like eerste are not capitalized:
- zijn eerste tentamen
- een grote tafel
Therefore: tentamen Nederlands (capital N), but eerste tentamen (lowercase e).
Not in this exact structure.
- het Nederlands = “the Dutch language” as a standalone noun:
- Ik vind *het Nederlands moeilijk.* = I find Dutch difficult.
But in tentamen Nederlands, Nederlands functions more like a subject label (“the subject Dutch”), not “the Dutch language” as an object. You normally don’t say:
- ✗ tentamen het Nederlands – sounds wrong.
So the correct form in this sentence is tentamen Nederlands, without het.
Yes, that word order is grammatically correct, and you will hear it. Both are possible:
- Tom is aan het leren voor zijn eerste tentamen Nederlands.
- Tom is voor zijn eerste tentamen Nederlands aan het leren.
The difference is very small. Version 1 keeps the verb phrase “is aan het leren” together and then adds why he’s learning. Version 2 brings the reason (voor zijn eerste tentamen Nederlands) closer to the front.
Both are natural; version 1 is slightly more neutral and common.
Literally, “aan” = “on/at” and “het” = “the”, but in “zijn + aan het + infinitive” this is best seen as a fixed idiom for the progressive aspect, not as a literal prepositional phrase.
Historically it comes from something like:
- Hij is aan het leren ≈ “He is at the learning (of it).”
In modern Dutch, you don’t interpret it literally; you just learn the pattern:
- zijn + aan het + infinitive → ongoing action: “to be doing X right now.”