Nightmares of er

To a lot of foreigners er is a very confusing word. Notonly can it mean a lot of things (like there, it, orjust nothing), it is also hard to study since it is mostlypronounced as d'r, 'r or even as hardly anythingat all. Besides, it can also be found at several places in thesentence.

First a few examples:

• Woon je in Amsterdam? Ja, ik woon er al drie jaar. (Doyou live in Amsterdam? Yes, I'm living there for three yearsalready.)
• Er staat een paard in de gang. (There's a horsestanding in the hall)
• Hoe gaat het ermee? (How are you?)
• Hoeveel kinderen heb je? Ik heb er drie. (How manychildren do you have? I've got three.)
• Je ziet er goed uit. (You're looking good.)

Only in the first two examples er is literallytranslated - in the other ones it could be translated, butthat would mostly produce a weird sentence. Nevertheless, theuse of er could very well be explained by it'sdifferent possible meanings if you don't take 'meanings' toliteral.

1 - Er means there/here

This could be (a) a not emphasized place, or (b)a non-particular subject.

(a) In the sentence Ja, ik woon er al drie jaaryou could replace er by either hier ('righthere') or daar ('over there') if you're pointingsomewhere, but you're not doing that in this case.

(b) In the sentence Er staat een paard in degang, you could do the same. If you want to say Right here - and not over there - thereis a horse standing in the hall, you would indeed usehier and daar: Hier - en niet daar - staateen paard in de gang.

Note however, that we are talking about een paard -a horse, so a non-particular subject. If it wouldbe het paard - the horse, we couldn't useer. We would either use daar or hier, or - even better - juststart with the subject:Het paard staat (hier/daar) in de gang.

2 - Er means it or them

Consider these sentences, where the object is replaced:

• Ik zie de film - ik zie hem (I seeit)
• Ik zie het programma - ik zie het (I seeit)
• Ik zie de boeken - ik zie ze (I seethem)

You see that for things you can use hem referring tode words, hetreferring to het words and ze referring toplurals.

Now consider these:

• Ik kijk naar de film - ik kijk ernaar (I lookat it)
• Ik kijk naar het programma - ik kijk ernaar (Ilook at it)
• Ik kijk naar de boeken - ik kijk ernaar (I lookat them)

So when there's a preposition, we use er to refer tode words, het words or plurals. And we place itnot only before the preposition, but also attached to it (likeernaar, erin, erop, ervan etc.). There can however, inmore complex sentences, be something (like a 'when', 'where'or 'how' statement, or simply niet) between erand the preposition:

• Ik kijk er niet naar.
• Ik kijk er vandaag liever niet naar.

Watch out, though: er is only used for things - forpersons we use the appropriate pronouns:

• Ik kijk naar hem/haar/jou/...

3 - Er means of them when counting

When something is counted and not mentioned, you use erto refer to theobject. You can use van meaning of, but youdon't have to and mostlya Dutchman wouldn't think of using it:

• Hoeveel kinderen heb je? Ik heb er drie.
• Hoeveel auto's zie je? Ik zie er tien.
• Hoeveel huizen heb je? Ik heb er een.
• Heb jij een auto? Nee ik heb er geen.

So while in English you have the choice between I haveten or I have ten of them, in Dutch the currentthing to say is only Ik heb er tien (for most Englishspeaking students it somehow feels weird saying this and theyneed to practice it for a while to get it 'into the system').

4 - Expressions

A lot of Dutch phrases containing er are merely to betaken as expressions and not to be translated literally. In agrammatical sense er would have a meaning likementioned above (here/there/it/them/...), but thatdoesn't always fully explain the form.

Take, for example Hoe gaat het ermee? It could betranslated as How goes it there with? or even justHow goes it with it, but that doesn't explain why thissentence is used this much (besides Hoe gaat het).

Or Je ziet er goed uit: it could be translated assomething like You look good out of it - but that still doesn't make much sense.

So, in those cases, an expression is better just taken as itis without to much questioning about the grammatical form.