Onze huisgenoot klaagt dat wij te laat naar bed gaan, maar hij speelt zelf tot middernacht op zijn spelcomputer.

Dutch has two grammatical genders for nouns in practice: de-words (common gender) and het-words (neuter).

• huisgenoot is a de-word: de huisgenoot.
• The possessive for de-words (and for all plurals) is onze.
• The possessive ons is only used before singular het-words.

So you get:

• onze huisgenoot – our housemate (de huisgenoot)
• ons huis – our house (het huis)
• onze huizen – our houses (all plurals take onze)

Therefore Ons huisgenoot would be grammatically wrong.

All three contain -genoot, which literally means “companion/fellow.”

• huisgenoot

  • Literally: “house-companion”
  • Usual meaning: someone who lives in the same house or flat as you.
  • They might have their own room; you just share the household (kitchen, bathroom, etc.).
  • Closest English: housemate, sometimes also “roommate” in American English, but more general.

• kamergenoot / roomgenoot

  • Literally: “room-companion.”
  • Someone who shares the same room with you (e.g., a dorm room).
  • Closest English: roommate in the literal sense.

So huisgenoot is broader: every kamergenoot/roomgenoot is also a huisgenoot, but not every huisgenoot shares your room.

klagen means to complain. You can use it in a few common patterns:

1. klagen over + noun/pronoun

   • Complain about something or someone.
   • Examples:
     
     • Hij klaagt over ons. – He complains about us.
     • Ze klaagt over lawaai. – She complains about noise.

2. klagen dat + clause

   • Complain that … (full sentence after dat).
   • In your sentence:
     
     • Onze huisgenoot klaagt dat wij te laat naar bed gaan.
     • “Our housemate complains that we go to bed too late.”

3. Very generally, without specifying the object:

   • Hij klaagt veel. – He complains a lot.

In this sentence, klagen dat is natural because you’re reporting what he says in the form of a whole statement: dat wij te laat naar bed gaan.

The conjunction dat introduces a subordinate clause in Dutch. In subordinate clauses, the finite verb goes to the end of the clause.

Structure here:

• dat – subordinating conjunction
• wij – subject
• te laat naar bed – adverb + phrase
• gaan – finite verb (present tense of gaan)

So correct Dutch order is:

dat wij te laat naar bed gaan

Putting gaan early (dat wij gaan te laat naar bed) breaks the normal subordinate clause word order and sounds wrong to native speakers.

Rule of thumb:

• Main clause: verb in 2nd position – Wij gaan te laat naar bed.
• Subclause (after dat, omdat, omdat, als, etc.): verb at the end – … dat wij te laat naar bed gaan.

Both wij and we mean “we”. The difference is mainly stress/emphasis and a bit of style:

• wij is the stressed form.
• we is the unstressed form and is more neutral/colloquial.

Usage tendencies:

• At the start of a sentence or when you want to emphasize the subject, wij is common:
  
  • Wij gaan te laat naar bed. – We (as opposed to others) go to bed too late.
• After the verb in a neutral sentence, we is more likely:
  
  • Gaan we te laat naar bed?

In dat wij te laat naar bed gaan, wij can sound slightly more emphatic:
> that we (the rest of the household) go to bed too late

You could also say dat we te laat naar bed gaan; it would be perfectly correct and a bit more informal/neutral.

They are two different uses of the same word form te:

1. te in te laat

   • Means “too” (excessive).
   • te + adjective/adverb = “too …”
   • Examples:
     
     • te laat – too late
     • te vroeg – too early
     • te duur – too expensive

2. te as infinitive marker (before a verb)

   • Used like English “to” before a verb in some constructions.
   • Examples:
     
     • te doen – to do
     • te slapen – to sleep
     • om te begrijpen – in order to understand

So in te laat, te is an adverb meaning “too”, not the infinitive marker.

naar bed gaan is a fixed, very common expression meaning “to go to bed (to sleep)”.

1. Word order

   • In a neutral main clause: Wij gaan naar bed. (verb in 2nd position)
   • In your subordinate clause: dat wij naar bed gaan (verb at the end).
   • The phrase naar bed stays together; both Wij gaan naar bed and Wij gaan naar bed te laat (still odd) keep gaan before the phrase in a main clause.

2. No article: bed vs. het bed
   Dutch often drops the article with certain everyday-activity nouns:

   • naar bed gaan – go to bed
   • naar school gaan – go to school
   • naar huis gaan – go home
   • naar kantoor gaan – go to the office (in a generic sense)

Saying naar het bed gaan would sound like going to a specific physical bed (for some purpose), not the routine action of going to sleep.

So naar bed gaan is idiomatic and exactly what you want here.

Here zelf is mainly for emphasis on the subject:

maar hij speelt zelf …
but he himself plays …

It contrasts him with us: he’s the one who is actually playing until midnight, even though he complains about others going to bed late.

Some notes about zelf:

• Often used to stress who does the action:

  • Ik doe het zelf. – I’ll do it myself.
  • Ze heeft het zelf gezegd. – She herself said it.

• “By himself/alone” is usually alleen, not zelf:

  • Hij speelt alleen. – He plays alone.

So in this sentence, zelf does not mainly mean “alone”; it’s more like an emphatic “he himself”, highlighting the irony.

In Dutch, when you use a device like a computer or console for games, you typically say spelen op [apparaat]:

• op de computer spelen – play on the computer
• op de PlayStation spelen – play on the PlayStation
• op zijn spelcomputer spelen – play on his game console

So op (“on”) is the normal collocation for using such a device for games.

Other prepositions would change the meaning:

• aan

  • Often used for “at” a device or workstation:
    
    • aan de computer werken – work at the computer
    • aan tafel zitten – sit at the table
  • aan zijn spelcomputer spelen is not idiomatic.

• met

  • Means “with” (as an instrument or together with someone):
    
    • met een bal spelen – play with a ball
  • met zijn spelcomputer spelen sounds like the console is more like a toy object than a device you’re using; it’s unusual for video gaming.

So op zijn spelcomputer is the standard way to say “on his game console/computer.”

tot middernacht literally means “until midnight.”

• In everyday use, it usually means up to, around, or until the moment of midnight, often implying you stop at about midnight.
• It’s not very precise about whether the exact stroke of midnight is included; context decides.

tot en met middernacht is more explicitly inclusive:

• Literally: “until and including midnight.”
• Used when you want to stress that something is valid through midnight, not just up to it (e.g., opening times, deadlines).

In your sentence, tot middernacht is perfect and sounds natural for a habitual behavior:
> he plays (up) until midnight.

Here maar is a coordinating conjunction meaning “but”. It connects two main clauses:

1. Onze huisgenoot klaagt dat wij te laat naar bed gaan
2. hij speelt zelf tot middernacht op zijn spelcomputer

In Dutch, when you join two full clauses with maar, you normally put a comma before maar:

…, maar hij speelt zelf tot middernacht …

You can start a sentence with Maar in Dutch, especially in spoken or informal written language:

• Maar hij speelt zelf tot middernacht op zijn spelcomputer.

This is similar to English “But he plays on his game console until midnight himself.” Formal writing sometimes avoids starting with Maar, but it is very common and natural in everyday language.

Dutch simple present is used more broadly than English simple present. It covers:

• Habitual actions / general truths
  
  • Hij speelt tot middernacht. – He (habitually) plays until midnight.
• Ongoing actions in the present (especially with time expressions), if the context makes it clear.

In this sentence, both verbs in the simple present:

• klaagt – complains (regularly)
• gaan – go (habitually)
• speelt – plays (habitually)

This fits a description of regular behavior and is completely natural.

If you wanted to stress the ongoing nature of the playing right now, you could use a progressive-like construction:

• Hij is tot middernacht op zijn spelcomputer aan het spelen.
• Hij zit tot middernacht op zijn spelcomputer te spelen.

These focus more on the activity in progress. But for describing a typical pattern of behavior, the simple present as in the original sentence is the usual and most natural choice.