What does “nadoen” mean in Dutch?
Zeg drie keer niet nadoen
A1 Dutch listening practice · Dutch from the Netherlands · Curated for beginners
A classic Dutch trick-question clip has one friend say zeg drie keer “niet nadoen”, “say 'don’t copy me,' three times”, then immediately gets the other to slip up and nadoen (copy) something anyway. Nadoen means to imitate or copy someone, built from na (after) plus doen (to do): literally, to do again what came before you.
Nadoen splits in conversation: “hij deed het meteen na” (“he copied it right away”). It covers everything from a sibling mimicking your voice to a comedian doing an impression. The repeat-a-word-then-trick-question format itself is a well-worn Dutch joke shape (the classic version asks “wat drinkt een koe?” after three rounds of “wit”), and this one turns the trap word into the answer itself.
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Source: wordfreq 3.1.1 (general) · SUBTLEX-NL 2014 (spoken). Buckets approximate; exact ranks not stored.