Dutch present tense verbs
The present tense (tegenwoordige tijd) covers what is happening now, what happens regularly, and even the near future. Master this one pattern and you can already talk about almost anything.
Step 1: Find the stem
Take the infinitive (the "to..." form, ending in -en) and remove the -en. "Werken" (to work) becomes the stem "werk". This stem is the ik (I) form on its own: ik werk.
Step 2: Add the right ending
Jij/je and hij/zij/het add -t to the stem. Wij, jullie and zij (plural) use the full infinitive. U (formal you) also takes -t.
| Pronoun | Werken (to work) |
|---|---|
| ik | werk |
| jij / je | werkt |
| u | werkt |
| hij / zij / het | werkt |
| wij / we | werken |
| jullie | werken |
| zij (plural) | werken |
A key spelling rule: keep the sound the same
Dutch spelling protects vowel sounds. "Maken" (to make) has a long a, so the stem doubles the vowel back if needed: ik maak, not ik mak. "Leggen" (to lay) has a short e, so a double consonant becomes single in the stem: ik leg, not ik legg.
Common irregular verbs
A handful of high-frequency verbs break the pattern and are worth memorising directly: zijn (to be) - ik ben, jij bent, hij is; hebben (to have) - ik heb, jij hebt, hij heeft; gaan (to go) - ik ga, jij gaat, hij gaat.
Word order with a second verb
The conjugated verb always sits in second position in a main clause. Any second verb (an infinitive) is pushed to the end: "Ik wil vanavond Nederlands leren" (I want to learn Dutch tonight), not "Ik wil leren Nederlands vanavond".
The full guide to Dutch word order →
The rule that catches everybody: jij
When jij or je comes after the verb rather than before it, the -t disappears. Jij werkt becomes werk jij in a question, and Morgen werk jij - never werkt jij. It applies only to jij and je: u, hij, zij and het keep their -t wherever they sit. This one rule is behind a large share of the mistakes learners make in their first year, largely because it fires exactly when you are already concentrating on something else, such as turning a statement into a question.
There is no continuous form, and barely a future
Dutch has no separate equivalent of "I am working". Ik werk covers both "I work" and "I am working", and context carries the difference without anybody noticing. The present tense also does most of the work of the future: ik ga morgen naar Utrecht is the ordinary way to say you are going tomorrow, with no future tense involved at all. For an English speaker this is a simplification rather than an obstacle, and it means the present tense buys you considerably more ground here than the equivalent would in French or Spanish.
How to drill it so it arrives in time
A conjugation table is easy to recognise and hard to produce, and only the second of those matters in conversation. The efficient drill is to take one verb, say all six forms out loud, then immediately use it in a sentence about your actual day - not an example sentence, a true one. Ten verbs treated that way is about a week of work and covers most of what you will need to say. The endings become automatic long before you could recite the table from memory, which is the right way round.