# Getting gas



## BlueWaffles

Hoi 
I'm translating "After you pick up your friend, we need to get gas" for practice. I'm more familiar with German, so I'm worried the structure would sound natural in German but not in Dutch. 
Nadat je heeft je vriend afgehaalde, moeten we tanken. 
Any help would be much appreciated 
Dank jullie wel!


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## NewtonCircus

Dag Blauwe Wafels ,

I don't know if my English is up to standard, but the difference between "pick up" and "Picked up" confuses me a bit. To me your sentence seems to have a mismatch between the tenses of the two verbs.

So I'd say:

After you have picked up your friend, we need to get gas: _Nadat je je vriend hebt afgehaald, moeten we gaan tanken_. 
After you pick up your friend, we need to get gas = _Nadat je je vriend afhaalt, moeten we gaan tanken_.

Maybe this is just me but the Dutch translation seems to have the same mismatch between the first and last part.

Groeten Herman


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## Tazzler

NewtonCircus said:


> Dag Blauwe Wafels ,
> 
> I don't know if my English is up to standard, but the difference between "pick up" and "Picked up" confuses me a bit. To me your sentence seems to have a mismatch between the tenses of the two verbs.
> 
> So I'd say:
> 
> After you have picked up your friend, we need to get gas: _Nadat je je vriend hebt afgehaald, moeten we gaan tanken_.
> After you pick up your friend, we need to get gas = _Nadat je je vriend afhaalt, moeten we gaan tanken_.
> 
> Maybe this is just me but the Dutch translation seems to have the same mismatch between the first and last part.
> 
> Groeten Herman



Both tenses are valid in the first clause in this case.


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## NewtonCircus

Dag BlueWaffles,



Tazzler said:


> Both tenses are valid in the first clause in this case.


In that case it is better to use _Nadat je je vriend hebt afgehaald, moeten we gaan tanken _I believe.

Groetjes Herman


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## HKK

NewtonCircus said:


> Dag BlueWaffles,
> 
> 
> In that case it is better to use _Nadat je je vriend hebt afgehaald, moeten we gaan tanken _I believe.
> 
> Groetjes Herman



Agreed. In fact "Nadat je je vriend afhaalt..." is barely grammatical. Also, you can use _wanneer_ instead of _nadat_. Oh, and there's not supposed to be a comma.

EDIT I just realized... Een vriend _afhalen_? That sounds like you're pulling him from a hole in the wall like bami. I think _ophalen _is right here.

All in all, I'd go with
_Wanneer je je vriend hebt opgehaald moeten we gaan tanken._


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## NewtonCircus

Dag HKK,



HKK said:


> "Nadat je je vriend afhaalt..." is barely grammatical.


I agree with you more or less (Although such grammar seems to be the norm these days since there are plenty of examples on the internet).  As I said, I didn't really know how to translate _After you pick up your friend, we need to get gas_ since _pick up_ is present tense here. This sounds strange to my Dutch or should I say Belgian ears .



HKK said:


> I just realized... Een vriend afhalen? That sounds like you're pulling him from a hole in the wall like bami. I think ophalen is right here.


I disagree. Why is _iemand afhalen_ wrong?

Groetjes Herman


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## Lopes

HKK said:


> Agreed. In fact "Nadat je je vriend afhaalt..." is barely grammatical.



Why is that? I think it's fine.



HKK said:


> Oh, and there's not supposed to be a comma.



I think there is.. 


HKK said:


> EDIT I just realized... Een vriend _afhalen_? That sounds like you're pulling him from a hole in the wall like bami.



You mean like a frikandel? Noone pulls bami from a hole in the wall.

​Nu ben ik klaar met m'n commentaar


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## HKK

NewtonCircus said:


> As I said, I didn't really know how to translate _After you pick up your friend, we need to get gas_ since _pick up_ is present tense here. This sounds strange to my Dutch or should I say Belgian ears .



Well, there is no need to keep the tenses in a translation. As long as the absolute and relative timing of the events stays the same, you're good. English tenses and Dutch tenses have a lot of similarities, but sometimes you must translate with a different one or end up with a stunted sentence.



NewtonCircus said:


> I disagree. Why is _iemand afhalen_ wrong?



As I said, I use _afhalen _for pulling things from the wall, not for picking up people. I would use _ophalen _for that. However _Van Dale_ agrees with you, so I seem to be on my own here! I should have checked first.



Lopes said:


> Why is that? I think it's fine.



I wrote a nice paragraph on this, then lost it trying to quote both Herman and you. So, excuse my laziness, here's a link saying that _nadat _is usually followed by a verb in a perfect tense (v.t.t. or v.v.t.). That is also my gut feeling. 



Lopes said:


> I think there is..



The more you learn  That comma looks kind of German to me, but well.



Lopes said:


> You mean like a frikandel? Noone pulls bami from a hole in the wall.



I meant a bamiblok


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