Dit boek hoort bij mijn studie Nederlands.

This book belongs to my Dutch studies.

Breakdown of Dit boek hoort bij mijn studie Nederlands.

• het boek: the book
• mijn: my
• dit: this
• de studie: the study
• het Nederlands: the Dutch language
• horen bij: to be part of

Questions & Answers about Dit boek hoort bij mijn studie Nederlands.

Why do we say hoort bij here and not just something like is?

In Dutch, horen bij is a very common expression meaning “to belong with / to be part of / to go with”.

• Dit boek hoort bij mijn studie Nederlands.
  → The book belongs with / is part of my Dutch studies.

Compared with simple is:

• Dit boek is mijn studie Nederlands.
  This would mean “This book is my Dutch studies”, which is not what you want.

So hoort bij emphasizes that the book is one of the things that belong together with your studies (like part of the course materials), not that it is the studies themselves.

What is the infinitive of hoort, and how is it conjugated?

The infinitive is horen.

Basic present tense conjugation:

• ik hoor – I hear / I belong (with)
• jij / je hoort – you hear / you belong (with)
• hij / zij / het hoort – he / she / it hears / belongs (with)
• wij / we horen – we hear / belong (with)
• jullie horen – you (plural) hear / belong (with)
• zij / ze horen – they hear / belong (with)

In the sentence:

• Dit boek = third person singular (it)
• so you use hoort: Dit boek hoort bij …

Why is it dit boek and not deze boek?

Dutch has two grammatical genders for nouns in practice:

• de-words (common gender)
• het-words (neuter)

The demonstratives are:

• dit / dat for het-words (this / that)
• deze / die for de-words

Boek is a het-word: het boek.
So:

• dit boek = this book
• dat boek = that book

You cannot say deze boek or die boek, because deze/die are used with de-words, e.g.:

• deze tafel (de tafel) – this table
• die man (de man) – that man

Why is there no article before mijn studie (why not de mijn studie or een mijn studie)?

In Dutch, a possessive pronoun (like mijn, jouw, zijn, haar, ons/onze, hun) normally replaces the article:

• de studie → mijn studie (my study)
• een boek → mijn boek (my book)
• not: de mijn studie, een mijn boek

So:

• Dit boek hoort bij mijn studie Nederlands.
  is correct and natural.

Using an article before mijn would be wrong in standard Dutch.

Why is it studie Nederlands and not Nederlands studie?

Word order in Dutch noun phrases is often the opposite of English when one noun explains another:

• English: physics degree
• Dutch: studie natuurkunde (literally “study physics”)

Common pattern for fields of study:

• studie rechten – law studies
• studie biologie – biology studies
• studie geschiedenis – history studies
• studie Nederlands – Dutch language studies

So the general pattern is:

• studie + [subject], not [subject] + studie

That’s why studie Nederlands is correct, while Nederlands studie sounds wrong to native speakers.

Could we also say studie van Nederlands?

You could say studie van Nederlands, but it is:

• grammatically possible,
• but stylistically less natural in this context.

For fields of study, Dutch normally uses the compact pattern:

• studie Nederlands
• studie Engels
• studie biologie

Studie van … is more common when talking about more abstract or specific topics:

• de studie van kindertaal – the study of child language
• de studie van het menselijk brein – the study of the human brain

So in this sentence, studie Nederlands is the standard and idiomatic choice.

Why is Nederlands capitalized here, and is that always the case?

Official spelling rules (Taalunie) say:

• Names of languages are written with a lowercase letter:
  nederlands, engels, duits, frans, etc.

So in ordinary text, the “most correct” spelling as the name of the language is:

• mijn studie nederlands

However, in practice you will very often see:

• mijn studie Nederlands

especially when it refers to:

• a school subject (Nederlands)
• a named study program (Nederlands as a course title)

Many schools and universities write the subject name with a capital. So:

• lowercase is what the official rule prefers for the language name,
• but uppercase is widely used and often accepted when it’s clearly the title of a subject or program.

Why is it Nederlands and not Nederlandse in mijn studie Nederlands?

Here Nederlands is used as a noun meaning “(the language) Dutch”, not as an adjective.

Compare:

• Ik studeer Nederlands. – I study Dutch (the language).
• Ik lees een Nederlands boek. – I’m reading a Dutch book.

In Nederlands boek, Nederlands is an adjective (“Dutch”), and in attributive position adjectives usually take -e:

• een Nederlands boek is actually often written een Nederlands boek (without -e) because it’s an indefinite neuter;
  but: het Nederlandse boek, de Nederlandse taal, mijn Nederlandse studie (all with -e).

In studie Nederlands:

• Nederlands is not describing “studie” as an adjective;
• it names the object of the study (the language), so it behaves like a noun (“Dutch”).

That’s why you say:

• mijn studie Nederlands
  but
• mijn Nederlandse studie = my Dutch (i.e. from the Netherlands) study/program (different meaning).

Is hoort bij a separable verb like many other Dutch verbs?

No. The verb is simply horen. Bij is just a preposition, not a separable particle.

So:

• Infinitive: horen bij (two words)
• Present: Dit boek hoort bij mijn studie.
• Past: Dit boek hoorde bij mijn studie.

In separable verbs, the particle can move to the end:

• meenemen → Ik neem het boek mee. (mee…nemen)

With horen bij, you don’t do that:

• You say: Dit boek hoort bij mijn studie.
• Not: ✗ Dit boek hoort mijn studie bij.

So treat hoort as the verb and bij as its normal preposition.

Could we say Dit boek is onderdeel van mijn studie Nederlands instead? Does it mean the same?

Yes, you can, and the meaning is very close:

• Dit boek hoort bij mijn studie Nederlands.
  → This book belongs with / is part of my Dutch studies. (neutral, everyday)

• Dit boek is onderdeel van mijn studie Nederlands.
  → This book is a component/part of my Dutch studies. (a bit more formal / explicit)

Both are correct. Differences:

• hoort bij is very common and idiomatic, slightly more informal or neutral.
• is onderdeel van sounds more technical or formal, literally “is a component of”.

In normal conversation, hoort bij is usually the first choice.

Can we change the word order to Bij mijn studie Nederlands hoort dit boek?

Yes, that is grammatically correct:

• Bij mijn studie Nederlands hoort dit boek.

Differences:

• Dit boek hoort bij mijn studie Nederlands.
  – neutral; starts with dit boek, so it emphasizes “this book”.

• Bij mijn studie Nederlands hoort dit boek.
  – puts bij mijn studie Nederlands at the front, so the context (“for my Dutch studies”) is emphasized first, and then you introduce “this book” as something that belongs there.

Both follow normal Dutch verb-second (V2) rules:

• First position: Dit boek / Bij mijn studie Nederlands
• Second position: hoort (the finite verb)
• Rest of the sentence afterwards.

Native speakers will use either version depending on what they want to focus on.