Why is it ‘een goed antwoord’ and ‘de goede auto’? And why do we say in Dutch: ‘Dat is goed?’ Let’s learn when to add an e at the ending of Dutch adjectives.
Dutch grammar rules can be… complicating. But luckily, this rule is rather easy. So, when do you say goed and when do you add -e at the end of goed?
First, we only add an -e when the adjective is in front of a noun. For example: ‘interessante dingen.’ If you put the adjective at the end with a verb, it doesn’t take the -e: ‘Die dingen zijn interessant.’ So as in the first example ‘dat is goed.’
And what about two adjectives? They’ll both take an -e: ‘Dat zijn goede, interessante dingen.’
If the adjective is in front of the noun, there will be some specific cases where you won’t use the -e. And they are: if the noun has ‘het’ as an article and if the article before the adjective is undetermined.
Examples:
– Een goed boek. (het boek, een is undertermined)
– Een goede auto. (de auto)
– Het goede boek (het boek, het is not undetermined)
And that’s it. Not sure whether to put an -e? Know that most nouns have de as an article, so your best bet would be to put an e. Also don’t forget the het changes into de in the plural, so your adjective will adapt accordingly:
– De goede boeken. (het boek)
Another case where an -e is added, is ‘mine’, ‘yours’, etc… :
– Dit is jouw boek, en dat is het mijne.
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