# Diminutive form -tje/-je



## Taalmsje

As a native Dutch speaker this one has interested me for some time: the Dutch diminutive form -tje or -je (and sometimes -ke)

It seems so superfluous. You can easily achieve the same effect by adding "little". Loads of languages don't have anything like it and don't seem to miss it. But for some reason it seems so important in Dutch and I would certainly miss it if it wasn't there anymore. 

Example: in Dutch you can say "kleintje" (a little one, something little or small, a small child). That seems very silly and superfluous, since "klein" means "little" so there's no need whatsoever to add the diminutive -tje. But that word "kleintje" means so much in Dutch. 

Or take a phrase like "klein huisje". Literally translated it means "a little little house". Only when translated does this seem odd. But not when used in Dutch. 

What are your thoughts about this? Does this form pose difficulties when learning Dutch for example? Does it seem odd and superfluous to, for instance, English speakers?


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## samantha3b

I've lived in The Netherlands and Belgium off and on for a several years and although not speaking Dutch very well, I can understand it well enough, especially the written form.

   Personally, I find the tje/je/ke endings really sweet, as well as being personal and expressive. If you say <'n beetje> it means <a bit> but <'n klein beetje> means a tiny bit. I get called Sammeke (or occasionally Sammetje) and it's friendly and intimate. Yes, I like it: it's very original and idiosyncratically Dutch )


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## Taalmsje

Thank you for your reply, interesting to know what non-native Dutch speakers think. I've heard the same thing before btw; people think it sounds very sweet. And it does 

I guess it is also something that makes a word or a sentence stand out as being Dutch to people who would not recognize the written language as Dutch otherwise.


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## MaxJ

Well I think the je/tje/pje etc. is very usefull. You can tell somebody how big something is in quite an easy way.

Like, fiets is big, after that you have een kleine fiets, fietsje is somewhat smaller and een klein fietsje in the smallest.


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## Taalmsje

You're right. Although "fietsje" and "klein fietsje" could also be interchangable. I could say "het kind had een klein fietsje" or "het kind had een fietsje", meaning the same thing: the child had a small bike. I wouldn't really distinguish between the two and just pick one. Someone else would understand perfectly well what I was trying to say in both occasions.

I would still like to know what people speaking languages that don't have this form think of it. Do they miss having something like it for instance?


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## Frank06

Hi,


Taalmsje said:


> You can easily achieve the same effect by adding "little".


If so, then we would have get rid of either "klein" or (rather) the diminutive. So, I don't think they achieve the same effect. As you have indicated yourself, a diminutive is a suffix which refers to more than just 'small' things.



> Loads of languages don't have anything like it and don't seem to miss it.


In how far do we, speakers of Dutch, miss the augmentative? . Well, as far as I know, we never had one and I think it's difficult to miss something you never had.  
As a speaker of Dutch, I do "miss" the dimininutive when trying to talk English, the same way I "miss" the (English) continuous forms when attempting to speak French (and that's why I tend to overuse "être en train de").



> What are your thoughts about this? Does this form pose difficulties when learning Dutch for example? Does it seem odd and superfluous to, for instance, English speakers?


I have never come across students who find a diminutive in itself weird or even difficult. Quite a few of them even tend to overuse it.
The major problem is the morphology (*bloem-je, *bloem-tje) or wrong phrases as *"een kleintje bloemtje".

Groeten,

Frank


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## George French

Voor een buitenlander er is een groot voordeel....

Als een word eindigd met je dan je hoeft niet te weten als het wordtje is een de of een het woord.

It is often used to describe big things as well. "Da's geen kleintje!"

GF.. Slaap lekker.


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## Taalmsje

True, words ending in -tje/-je can never be "de" words


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## Grytolle

I don't find forming diminutives is difficult, but I tend to mostly use it to express affection or the opposite. I've consciently tried not to over-use it, since I don't want to pick up on the bad habit of using it because you don't know what gender a word has... 

Also, by not using it a lot, I don't risk using it in ways that don't sound good. For example I would sound a bit "gay" (not my own woordkeuze ) if I said "ik koop troepjes" when playing a table game, eventhough the miniature troops are small


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## George French

Taalmsje said:


> I would still like to know what people speaking languages that don't have this form think of it. Do they miss having something like it for instance?


 
To answer your direct question is impossible, I can only speak for myself. No, I do not miss it in English.

A bike, a small bike, a very small bike. It is the same concept, but we normally say it differently.

What do I think of it? It's there, it's a fact, it has its uses. Be glad you have this in your language.

GF..

But we *do have it in English* in our use of names. Take a boy who was Christened William. He starts his life as Billie and when he is grown up he becomes Bill. Many mothers will call their child Billie for the rest of their life.


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## Chimel

Taalmsje said:


> I would still like to know what people speaking languages that don't have this form think of it. Do they miss having something like it for instance?


When you speak several languages, you always miss some things in language A, some other things in language B... and you sometimes dream of a perfect language combining the best things of all !

To me, the Dutch diminutive is certainly such a thing. Not just to say something is small or little, because these words exist in any language, but rather in the affective way: I think "Mijn kindje" does mean much more than "my little child", doesn't it?


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## Lopes

Frank06 said:


> In how far do we, speakers of Dutch, miss the augmentative? .


 
I happened to be thinking about this recently, and you could as well say the Dutch language "misses" a lot compared to for example Italian, which has at least 3 other diminuitive forms, as well as pejoratives or vezzegiatives (I don't really know what they're called in English) which express even other things. 
I personally don't miss being able to say 'sweet little small horse' (yes, little and smal ) or 'big nasty cat' in one word, but I know some that would


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