Re: Accents

Christophe Grandsire wrote:

> Though I stay careful: Dutch is full of those expressions made out of
> monosyllabic words which don't have anything to do with the meaning of the
> words separated (when they can be found a meaning at all :)) ).
> My favourite one at the moment is "ben je het met me eens?" meaning: "do
you
> agree with me?"
Ja, dat ben ik met je eens.

> (though you'd probably hear more "ben je het mee eens?": "do you agree?"),
No, that doesn't sound right to me. You would have to ad "er"." as in "Ben
je het ermee eens?"
Or you could say something like "Mee eens?" for short.

"eens zijn" is just a verbal expression, literally translated as "to be
ones" which means "to agree", where "eens" is an adjective meaning something
like "of the same mind/of the same opinion/in agreement".

"het eens zijn met" has "het" similar to english "to" to indicate a
nomalized verb and "met" meaning "with".

"het er mee eens zijn" has added "er", which is commonly takes the place of
an undefined object, and "met" changes form to "mee".

> while a litteral translation gives: "Are you it with me once/ever?" :)))
No, "eens" has two meanings: it can mean "once" as in "once upon a time"
indicating an undefined time in the past or future, but the second meaning
means "in agreement", and can be used in various verbal expressions like
"het eens zijn", "het eens worden" etc.

Maarten

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